Zerobaseone Imagines kim taerae – love letter

kim taerae x reader
whilst taerae is trying to scrape up the courage to give you a love letter, some anonymous person beats him to it.

you trudged over to your locker soaked to the brim. your hair was damp from the rain outside, despite your hood and the umbrella you had brought with you.

everyone at school seemed to be in the exact same situation as you. it was a miserable monday morning and you wanted nothing more than to be at home asleep.

whilst attempting to shove your umbrella into your locker something came tumbling down and your eyes widened. you left your umbrella half sticking out and dropped down immediately to pick up the envelope.

“what’s this?” you muttered to yourself opening it up carefully.

your first presumption was that it was a party invitation, maybe someone had decided to be very extravagant about their birthday this year and opted for a handwritten invitation rather than a simple text message.

to your surprise however it seemed to be a love letter.

you almost choked on your own spit after reading only the first few lines

to y/n,
             i don’t know if I’m in love with you. i think i am. actually maybe i do know i’m in love with you because if i wasn’t in love with you then i wouldn’t be writing this corny love letter. i expected love to feel warm, mushy and giggly, but really it’s scary and happy at all once. my heart literally batters against my chest everytime you look at me, and lately my thoughts are just consu—

“hey y/n.” you almost jumped out of your skin at the unexpected arrival of gyuvin.

“hello.” you dragged out the middle of the word as you hurriedly hid the letter behind your back slamming against your locker as you, unintentionally, finally managed to close it.

gyuvin raised an eyebrow at your weird demeanour. “…what you got there?”

you laughed nervously, nibbling at your lip as the notice board suddenly became very interesting. “nothing, nothing i was just looking, at the uh, the sign up sheet for the musical.” you tried to sound as convincing as possible, ultimately failing.

“but it looked like you were reading something. you were getting all giddy and tucking your hair behind your ear.” he teased, re-enacting everything.

you rolled your eyes, attempting to kick his shin. “i wasn’t! why were you watching me anyways… stalker.” you gave him a judgemental look that he couldn’t help but snicker at.

“it doesn’t matter just tell me what’s going on.” gyuvin waved you off.

he was acting like he needed to know what information was in that envelope or a bomb would detonate.

“fine.” you sighed.

you tell him partly because you wanted him to stop annoying you and also because you felt like a preteen who needed to gush about her crush or you were going to explode.

“it’s a love letter.” you revealed it, biting back a smile. gyuvin tried to grab it from you, cackling like a madman, “y/n has a secret admirer.” he said in a singsong tone.

“shut up.” you yanked it away before he could get too close, a wide smile was on your face.

“who’s it from.” he pestered.

you placed a hand on your hip. “why are you so nosey.”

“don’t act like your not dying to tell your bestest friend.” gyuvin was practically bouncing on his heels.

you decided not to waste your breath on arguing against the statement.

“i don’t know.” you finally replied, eyes flittering over the page.

gyuvin tilted his head, “you don’t know, or you don’t want me to know.”

“i actually don’t know, there’s no signature. now shoo.” you waved him away and he rolled his eyes huffing. “well that was anticlimactic.”

you didn’t have the strength in you to flick his forehead so you just turned back to your locker placing the letter carefully in your binder and then headed towards your first class of the day.

gyuvin watched you leave and then he made his way over to his other friends across the hallway. he tapped at taerae’s shoulder. “bro. your girl is gonna be snatched away from you any day now.”

taerae feigned obliviousness and furrowed his eyebrows.

gyuvin sighed and dragged him to the side.

“stop acting as if you weren’t staring longingly at y/n just now. she was opening up a love letter from some random person that wasn’t you by the way.”

taerae finally dropped the act. he sighed deeply and his shoulders drooped. “this is like the universe’s way of telling me to give up on her. what are the chances that someone else writes her a love letter while i was scraping up the courage to.”

gyuvin places a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “let’s be honest, you were never going to give it to her.”

taerae couldn’t deny the truth in his friend’s words. he could barely speak to you and you hardly even acknowledged him on the off chance you tagged along with gyuvin to hang out with all of them.

it may have had something to do with how he accidentally hit you with a football that one time in sophomore year.

to taerae it was a meet-cute. even though you had been the one who literally got knocked down by a football, he was the one who fell.

you obviously didn’t think of it like that however because you had steered clear of him ever since.

“it was nice to know i had a chance though, now some other person did it before me.” taerae’s lips pulled down into a frown and gyuvin wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“don’t worry taerae. i’ve got your back.”

***

minji raked a hand through her hair as she examined her reflection in the mirror hanging above gyuvin’s mantelpiece.

she looked at you through the mirror, sprawled on the couch rereading the letter. “how many times are you going to read that?” she asked.

“as many times as i have to until it’s tattooed in my brain.” you sighed dreamily, sitting up.

“why are you getting all dolled up.” you wondered whilst you watched her touch up her makeup.

“gyuvin’s been gone for ages, what if he decides to be spontaneous and bring one of his hot friends over.” she explained before smacking her lips together.

you blinked at her and then scrunched your nose up. “all his friends are losers.”

minji brought her makeup bag over to the coffee table in front of the couch and then sat beside you. her hands were on you shoulders as she looked at you in disbelief, “i’m convinced you’re constantly in denial.”

“denial?” you sputtered tilting your head curiously at your friend.

“yes. in denial that they’re cute and at least one of them is probably into you. you run away from any chance of love ever.”

you blinked at her. “none of his friends are into me and i don’t run away from love.”

minji had half a mind to smack you upside the head. “denial.”

you shook your head at her. “i’m not, look.” you waved the love letter around, “not avoiding or running away.”

“girl that is a piece of paper.” she deadpanned. “we need to take action. y’know, figure out who wrote it.” minji tapped at her chin thoughtfully.

the girl had a lightbulb moment right before your eyes as she looked towards the door and then at you again. “what if one of gyuvin’s friends wrote it.”

you were convinced minji had seriously gone crazy now. “no, no. it wasn’t.”

albeit the fact you thought she was uttering nonsense you couldn’t help but think about the idea. what if they did come over and one of them was your secret admirer.

you couldn’t risk them catching you looking crazy, hair sticking up in every direction whilst reading the letter for the gazillionth time.

“actually, could i borrow some of that lipgloss.” you said tentatively.

minji’s lips curled up into a proud grin, “atta girl.”

as if on schedule gyuvin burst into the living room, hands filled with all sorts of different food. “i come bearing gifts.”

he dropped the food on the counter and then went outside and pushed a shy taerae in.

“food and taerae!”

you and minji greeted taerae and he waved back. you couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at the friend gyuvin had brought over however.

it wasn’t that you didn’t like taerae, no that was far from it. it was more you suspected he didn’t like you.

you vividly remembered him hitting you with a football in sophomore year, running over towards you to come get it and then staring at you wordlessly until you finally got up to get yourself to the nurse’s office.

needless to say you weren’t exactly dying to get any closer to him after that.

he was cute though, there was no denying that, especially as the tips of his ears went red and his deep dimples appeared once you and minji’s eyes were on him.

gyuvin smiled mischievously to himself. “oh, would you look at that, i think i left my keys on the blue floor mat outside room 316.”

you all gave him a weird look at the oddly specific description.

gyuvin just giggled slipping out the door.

your eyes were once again fixed on the letter and you sighed before joining in on the conversation minji and taerae had started when you spaced out for a second.

you were surprised to find taerae was already looking at you although you hadn’t even been contributing to the conversation.

you cleared your throat awkwardly, your face suddenly feeling warm. you then turned to look at minji.

your eyes widened as you realised what they were talking about.

“so would you have any idea who wrote the letter?” your best friend asked as if it was no big deal. you elbowed her in the rib. “ouch!”

taerae watched the scene play out chuckling. “you don’t have to say anything, even if you do know something taerae.” you reassured him.

“i’ve got no idea who it could be, but it’s not surprising somebody wrote a love letter to you. i mean,” realising he was about to start rambling taerae cut himself off quickly before coughing.

minji was looking at him, clearly amused and then over at you. your eyes were focused solely on taerae, waiting for him to finish his sentence, even though he quite obviously wasn’t going to.

taerae prayed gyuvin would magically appear in the room again. he avoided eye contact and stared at the door.

his saviour came from another room.

in came ricky, he looked like he had just woken up even though it was nearly 2pm, which was very unlike him.

“hey guys.” he greeted groggily, his voice was raspy and tired and taerae saw you and minji share a glance.

you’d forgotten ricky was crashing at gyuvin’s place whilst his family were on a trip to l.a.

“hi ricky.” minji smiled. “hey.” you added in. taerae waved at his friend too.

you and minji were kneeling on the sofa, you looked like two meerkats with the way you propped up to look at the boy.

ricky laughed at you two, “what’s going on here? where’s gyuvin?”

“nothing.” you and minji said in unison, mischievousness laced in your tones.

“ricky how do you feel about writing, say, letters for example?” you tried to appear as unbothered as possible and ricky chuckled grabbing milk from the fridge.

“oh is this about your love letter.” he sang the words ‘love letter’ just like gyuvin had and you rolled your eyes at how similar the two were sometimes.

you pouted. “gyuvin already told you.” you stated sulking.

“i’d bet you were desperately hoping for your secret admirer to be me.” the boy teased cockily. he looked up from the bowl of cereal he was pouring milk in and his gaze had you melting back into the couch shyly.

“was not.” was your feeble reply.

ricky smirked, seemingly happy with your reaction. he then grabbed his (very late) breakfast and went to hide in the guest room again.

“it was him.” minji concluded.

you rolled your eyes, “were you daydreaming throughout that whole conversation or something. it’s definitely not ricky.”

“yeah.” taerae chimed in abruptly, making you and minji swivel your heads towards him.

he scratched the back of his neck, “uh i mean it’s just not like ricky to write love letters you know and well i don’t know. i mean he can barely finish english papers and in freshman year he hated studying romeo and juliet.”

he was surprised at the harmonious laugh he heard after his babbling. it made taerae feel like his heart exploded in his chest.

he smiled bashfully and you decided kim taerae was charming— in an awkward sort of way. you would have to question him on that whole football situation sometime though.

***

“taerae? hey!” you waved as the boy walked into the book shop you worked at.

‘jung’s corner’ had been your safe place for as long as you could remember. It was such a lovely store, so as soon as you saw ‘HELP NEEDED’ signs last wednesday you jumped at the chance.

taerae looked flustered. his right hand was flailing around mid air as he fanned himself due to the hot weather outside.

he had meant to go home.

although somehow he managed to find himself walking towards the local bookstore.

“hey y/n, i remembered you saying you were working today so i decided to drop by,” he paused for a moment shoving his hands into his pockets, “i was already heading in this direction anyway so…”

“well i’m glad you did, want any recommendations?” you asked, walking out from behind the counter. taerae nodded enthusiastically and you grinned, nodding towards the section you wanted him to follow you to.

the past few days gyuvin had brought taerae along to every hangout you two had planned. you didn’t mind, the more you got to know taerae the more you learned of all his endearing habits.

you needed to figure out what gyuvin was playing at though.

“my personal favourite book in the whole world is alice in wonderland.” You decided to spark up conversation as you guided him to the fifth aisle.

“that sounds about right.” he smiled fondly. you arched a playful eyebrow at him. “care to expand.”

“you remind me of alice, i don’t know..full of hope and never giving up. i’ve only watched the live action movie though” the dark haired boy fiddled with his fingers, eyes dancing around the shop.

you give him a knowing look, “you’re just saying that.”

he chuckled and shrugged. “no, it’s true.”

you smiled flattered by his words and then finally reached the fifth aisle. “voila.” you ran your hand against the spine of a few books. “kim taerae centre.”

you looked back at him and nearly awed aloud at how cute he looked, his round eyes were staring eagerly waiting for you to go on. “ever heard of normal people.”

you waved the book at him. “i only finished it yesterday and when i was reading i kept thinking about how i needed to lend it to you after.”

taerae couldn’t help the butterflies that erupted in his stomach at that. you thinking about him.

“want me to read some to you.” you went on when he remained silent. “yeah! yeah.” taerae said hastily once he realised how long he had stayed quiet, just staring at you like a crazy person.

but you thought it was cute. he was cute.

taerae was rather pleased with himself for taking the plunge and going to see you today, if he hadn’t he would have missed out on leaning against the bookshelves and sitting right beside you as you read to him.

you quite literally forgot about all your responsibilities, dropping everything to hang out with him. luckily it wasn’t very busy that day.

after about half an hour reading taerae interrupted you. “why can’t conall just communicate with her.”

he seemed very stressed about the whole thing. you let out a breathy laugh, “boys.” you shrugged jokingly.

taerae nudged your shoulder lightly. “i’m not like that.”

you nudged him back.

“i guess i’ll see for myself when you like someone and it’s time to reveal your feelings to them.”

taerae gulped at that, feeling like a deer caught in headlights, like you had spotted him in the act of doing something he shouldn’t have been.

he chuckled nervously mumbling out a “yeah.” and you were about to question him on his sudden nervousness when your name was called. you practically shot up from your place beside taerae at the sound of your manager.

“duty calls. let’s go pay for this.” you held your hand out for him which he took gratefully and you helped him up.

you smiled sheepishly as you came face to face with your manager yoona. “sorry! sorry, i was just helping this customer.” you sent taerae a little smile and he smiled back. “i’ll check this out for you.”

yoona inspected the pair of you for a moment or two more before pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing. “don’t let me catch you slacking off again.”

you only flashed her a toothy grin, knowing that underneath that stoic expression she liked you too much to actually punish you. “you got it boss.”

she shook her head at you before disappearing into the backroom.

you got behind the cashier and scanned the book for taerae. “oh no don’t worry, it’s a gift from me.” you stopped him once you noticed him taking out his wallet.

“and here, you get a complimentary bookmark. you looked behind you at the array of bookmarks before choosing the one littered with heart designs.

taerae blushed but tried to will himself not to dwell too much on it.

“there.” you said, pushing the paper bag towards him.

“thank you so much y/n.” his cheeks were probably going to be sore by the end of the day due to the amount of smiling he was doing. yours probably would too.

“no problem, i’m really glad you stopped by today!” you waved at him as he headed towards the door.

“me too.” the genuinity in his tone made the butterflies in your stomach go berserk and you nodded at him one last time before watching him walk away.

***

“what’s got you skipping around.” minji asked suspiciously, chewing her gum loudly.

“that gum is not going anywhere.” you fired back ignoring her question.

she hit your shoulder with the back of her hand and asked the question again, chewing her gum with a little less force now.

“nothing. i’m just in a good mood today.”

minji knew that was bull. you were never happy to be going to a party with her. except that one time you had found a coin on the ground, and swore you would be blessed with good luck for the rest of the night.

“did you find your secret admirer and not tell me?” she guessed, gasping at you. the pair of you turned a corner and made your way up to the huge house at the end of the street.

you could already hear the booming music from where minji had parked but now as you got closer you saw just how boisterous the event was.

“no, no. of course not. i’m just excited to see everyone.” you nodded, smiling a tight lipped smile and she gave you a knowing look.

truth be told you had somewhat forgotten about your secret admirer, too caught up with the liking you had taken to a certain boy.

you avoided eye contact with her however and only sped up so you could get to the party quicker.

you decided to keep to yourself how much you were looking forward to seeing taerae. you hadn’t been able to see him properly since he came to visit you at work and you really wanted to know what he thought of ‘normal people’.

and how he was doing and see him smiling and hear his deep voice…

you were beginning to think you had a teensy little crush on taerae.

it was embarrassing, only a couple weeks of properly hanging out with the guy and you were already blushing at the thought of him.

not to mention the person who wrote you a love letter was out there somewhere and you somehow felt as if you were screwing them over by liking someone else.

not that it was your fault that they didn’t have the courage to write down a stupid name at the end of the page.

that would have made everything so much easier.

“okay, don’t tell me the truth then. i’m glad you’re happy though. remember if you need me, call me but i’m a woman on a mission so i gotta go.” she kissed your cheek and was gone as soon as you stepped through the door.

minji was determined to get park sunghoon’s number and would stop at nothing until she succeeded. you didn’t blame her.

you sighed, nose scrunching up at the smell of booze. you felt claustrophobic as you tried to push your way through the crowd and ended up being squished up against a bajillion people at once.

“y/n.”

you turned around embarrassingly fast once you emerged from the crowd and came face to face with taerae. “hi.” you lifted up your hand to wave at him.

taerae grinned before nodding towards the kitchen.

you followed him there and let out a breathe once you arrived, “i thought i was gonna die in there.”

taerae scratched the back of his neck and chuckled, “parties around here aren’t usually this crowded, i don’t know what the guys were telling people for the turnout to be this crazy.”

he pulled out two red solo cups and filled them with the punch. he offered you one and you took it gratefully.

“missed you at jung’s.” you said after taking a sip of the drink. you grimaced at the taste. there was more than just regular punch in there that’s for sure.

his cheeks flushed and your lips curled upwards. “i was gonna stop by again but i didn’t wanna be annoying, i finished the book you gave me by the way. it’s amazing. i seriously haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

you leaned against the counter, smiling up at taerae and he felt his breath hitch for a moment. his eyes flickered down to your lips, just for a millisecond, before he cleared his throat.

“i knew you would like it.”

he nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

you peeped into the crowded party area that you had just escaped from and then looked at taerae. “wanna dance?”

he waved his hands wildly. “no! i mean not that i don’t want to dance with you. of course i would love to, but that’s not really my thing. i don’t really— i can’t really—,”

“no worries.” you assured him. it wasn’t really your scene either but you had just suggested something to be able to be closer to him.

“do you maybe wanna go find a room to just chill and talk in.” you suggested pointing upwards. “the music is still kinda loud, even in here.”

taerae’s voice got a decibel higher when he replied. “sure. sure that’s sounds…sure.”

you laughed at his nervousness and then gestured for him to lead the way, seeing as he knew the people hosting the party.

that’s how you found yourself giggling about two hours into the party up in a random bedroom with taerae. turns out he became quite the storyteller with a couple drinks in his system.

he was currently telling you about the time gyuvin had fallen down the escalator at the mall whilst trying to hit on someone and you were doubling over with laughter.

“wait what did,” you paused to catch your breath, “what did the person he was trying to ask out say.”

taerae was giggling adorably as he told the story. “i think you should go to the hospital first.”

if anybody had been in the room with you two they probably would have thought the pair of you were crazy. the story was in no way funny enough to have you shedding tears from laughing, but yet there you were.

your head rested on taerae’s shoulder as your laughter died down and you looked up at him.

he looked very pretty. he always did but something about the dim lighting in the room made him look even better than usual and once he looked down at you and realised you were already looking at him he gulped.

this time when his eyes moved down to your lips you noticed and didn’t hesitate to lean in and kiss him but as soon as taerae began to melt into the kiss you were pulling away and facepalming.

“i can’t, what about my secret admirer.” you mumbled almost incoherently and taerae felt his stomach twist.

he decided if he wanted to confess to you, there was no better moment than now.

“they’re not here now, but i am and i really, really like you. i don’t know if i’m in love with you. i think i am. i expected love to be so much more different i don’t know but you make me feel scared
and happy—.”

your eyes widened to the size of saucers. you would literally recognise those words from anywhere.

the love letter.

but taerae had never read it. he was saying everything your secret admirer had written and he hadn’t even skimmed that piece of paper.

you blinked at him once, then twice. “—all at once and everytime i look at you your heart literally batters against my chest?” you finished for him cautiously and quietly.

taerae mouth fell agape in surprise at you interrupting the confession he had prepared, “what are you psychic or something?”

you giggled happily scrambling for your purse before pulling out the love letter.

taerae couldn’t believe his eyes as you pulled a draft of what he had been planning to give you but later threw in the bin. “how did that..?” he trailed off before coming to a quick realisation.

“gyuvin. that sneaky little..”

you couldn’t stop the feeling of your heart battering against your chest. “so it is you.”

taerae nodded, “it’s me.”

and that was all the conformation you needed to put your lips back on his again. you leaned in and captured his mouth in a soft kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. then you pulled away, again, way too quickly for taerae’s liking.

which was evident with the way he leaned in again and frowned when you stopped him.

“why didn’t you just tell me.” you asked, albeit a little breathlessly. taerae chewed at his lip before smiling sheepishly. “i don’t know. a month ago it felt like i didn’t even exist to you.”

your fingers drummed lightly against the back of his neck. “only because i thought you hated me, i mean you are the one that hit me with that football and didn’t even bother to help afterwards.” you frowned playfully and taerae’s ears went red with embarrassment.

he sighed and leaned his head back against the bed before turning to look at you. “well can you blame me, you’re you. forgive me for being a little starstruck.”

you giggled at his choice of words. “starstruck?”

he seemed to become more flustered if that was even possible and so you decided to stop your joking. with an ease that made taerae’s heart race you straddled his hips and made up for your incessant teasing by reconnecting your lips again.

***

in honour of taerae and matthew being healthy and back on stage today <3

i hope you enjoyed reading! let me know what you think 😀