Running to You | Park Han + JL + Steven | Haneulz + Stejay AU

Epilogue 2: Power Couple

(author's note: it might have been worth it writing a whole book just to get this chapter, because I got SUCH a kick out of writing this >.< I'm totally one of the squealing campus girls, yep)

The funny thing -- and by funny, one means funny in the cosmic sense, as in how absurdly ironic life can be -- was that, for all the months Han and JL had been together, no one had ever really seen them together. Not like this.

Sure, people knew, in the same way one knows that the moon is out at night or that water is wet. The rumors had existed from the moment JL arrived on campus, radiating that improbable combination of fragility and magnetism -- like some wounded but beautiful UFO that had crash-landed directly into Park Han's highly controlled orbit.

But after the accident, after the long and devastating year of rehab, JL's world had shrunk to something very small and very private -- a closed loop of hospital rooms, physical therapy centers, his apartment, and Han’s constant, steady presence. When they ventured out, it was for function, not for spectacle. The world was not permitted the full view of what these two men together actually looked like. The public, bless them, had not been ready.

They were about to learn.

Because now -- now that JL had returned not only to walking but to sprinting, not only to sprinting but to competing, not only to competing but to slowly climbing back into his rightful place near the top -- now the full impact of Han and JL, as a couple, had finally been unleashed upon an unsuspecting campus.

And it was, frankly, threatening to ruin every fangirl's life.

It was not only that they were both beautiful -- although they were, in that particularly cruel way that made people question their own genetic makeup. Han, the living embodiment of Korean national athleticism: tall, broad-shouldered, porcelain-skinned, with that sharp, aquiline nose, his gaze sharp and intense even when relaxed, his overgrown hair brushing his cheekbones as if it, too, was trying to caress him.

And then JL -- lithe, golden, with long legs, sharp abs, an elfin jaw that cut at angles made for photographs, big dark eyes that somehow held an entire generation’s fanfiction at gunpoint, and a heart-shaped smile that was literally unfair.

But their good looks were only part of it. It was how they were together.

For one, Park Han had apparently developed the instinctive habit of touching JL at all times, as though worried JL might evaporate if not held securely. A hand at his waist. An arm thrown lazily over his shoulders. Fingers lazily brushing over JL’s lower back as they walked, entirely unaware that every single pair of eyes within a 30-foot radius had locked onto the gesture with the intensity of a scientific phenomenon.

And then there was the way Han said babe.

No one, prior to this, had believed Park Han even possessed the capacity for such a word. It was more than understatement that Park Han simply did not say things like babe.

No one had ever even heard Park Han say anything remotely sweet. He was aloof, controlled and the dispenser of concise, measured speech, whose public statements during interviews were efficient to the point of militaristic.

And yet -- when JL turned toward him with that slightly knowing, impossibly pretty little smile, Han’s voice would drop, and his entire expression melting into something softer.

"Babe," Han would murmur, so casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Or worse -- "Baby."

It caused small academic crises. People would freeze mid-conversation. One student in the sociology department reportedly walked directly into a lamppost.