Chapter Text
*Beep*
...
*Beep*
...
*Ring*
...
*Bee-* *Bang*
The ringing of the alarm clock immediately ceased as it was knocked off of the black dyed mahogany nightstand by a half-awake/half-asleep Dong Sicheng at exactly 8:30 a.m.
He didn't seem to care however, as he sat up in his bed, stared blankly at the now fallen, miraculously not broken alarm clock, and tried to gather enough energy to get himself out of his sitting position on the top of the bunk bed that he shared with his roommate, and make an attempt to go on about his day as he normally would. College, was, in polite terms, stressful for Sicheng. He'd often described it as a bit of a hellhole, but he'd never say that outside of closed doors. He took a moment to compose himself after waking up, and looked around the room and listened to his surroundings, and noticed a silence in the room. Anybody else would've been weirded out by the absence of noise within the room, but it was a normal occurrence in Sicheng's dorm room. His roommate, Jung Yoonoh,or Jaehyun as he liked people to call him casually, would go on morning runs and thus, leave Sicheng in the room by himself during the early mornings. However, he was usually back by 7:00 a.m. so he'd have enough time to get ready for classes for the day, which started at 7:30 a.m.
But then it hit Sicheng, it was 8:30 a.m. which means that he overslept and was actively skipping class for a whole hour. He quickly jumped from his bunk, which was the top one of the bunk bed, and he might have or might not have twisted his ankle, but he couldn't have cared less. He rushed and got into the shower of their bathroom, and gave himself a quick shower. Well, it was actually more of a water splash with added soap and shampoo, and he hurried out door and grabbed an outfit for the day. It consisted of a t-shirt, tight ripped skinny jeans, and a pair of black work boots, which was basically his everyday outfit at this point in time. He finished putting on his boots, grabbed his backpack and ran out the door, not caring how his hair looked, and was on his way out of the door and to his first class of the day, which was almost over at this point, which was Biology.
Upon entering the campus through the front door, he was greeted with people buzzing through the hallways moving to their second class of the day or taking their free period off for the day, which means that he had completely missed his first class, and was going to have to face the repercussions later. However, he took the free time between the two periods and walked to the library, where he and his group of friends usually gathered. He walked into the library and was greeted with what he expected to be greeted with, his friends gathered around, sitting down at their table that they had picked out the first day of college, talking about who knows what. As he walked up to the group of four that had been there prior to his arrival, he was met with Jaehyun jerking him by his arm and down into the seat directly beside him, as he always did, giving Sicheng was the last one to arrive there every day. He was sure that he wasn't the best sight to see, giving that he had literally just woken up about twenty minutes prior to this, and that his hair looked like a poodle got stuck in a windstorm, and was implanted onto his head and into his scalp to replace his hair.
"Oh look, it's awake." Lee Taeyong snarked out, looking across the table at Sicheng, giving him a cold but warm glare, if that was even possible.
Sicheng grabbed one of the straps on his backpack, swung it around him, and threw it down onto the ground next to the chair beside of him and looked across the table at Taeyong.
"No. I'm asleep and I'm having full conversations with people while being so. Yes I'm awake." Sicheng looked at Taeyong, who shrugged in response.
"Anyway, why're you here so early? You missed a very exciting, thrilling, and show stopping lecture in Biology from Professor Heechul about what makes the body shit out what it takes in and how that entire process is done. It was very riveting." Doyoung informed Sicheng, and Mark nodded along.
Jaehyun looked at Doyoung and lightly slapped his arm, shaking his head with a scolding look on his face.
"Language!" Jaehyun scolded him as he looked and motioned towards Mark, the youngest one out of the group of friends and shook his head.
"I'm not a child, you know." Mark, the freshly turned 18 year old reminded the other members of the friend group. They always seemed to treat him like a child, when he clearly was not one, despite being the youngest one of all five of them.
"Sure you aren't-" Sicheng spoke before he cut himself off as he looked in the distance and saw the one thing that he didn't want to that day. The one person he didn't want to see that day. Nakamoto Yuta.
There was nothing inherently wrong about Yuta, but there was also nothing that Sicheng liked. That was a lie. He liked everything about Yuta but he didn't want to admit it. Yuta was everything that Sicheng strived to be, and was at one point. Yuta was handsome, athletic, popular, and academically gifted in areas where Sicheng was academically challenged.
Sicheng, putting it lightly, admired Yuta and everything he did. But he never had the chance, or really the courage to talk to the older male, seeing as how different they were. Yuta was at the top of the social food chain, and Sicheng was at the very bottom of it with his small group of friends. The rest of his friends had other friends away from their group, but all Sicheng had were those four friends that he'd see every single day in the same fashion. Yuta would go to parties, and even host some of them, and Sicheng would stay home and lay in his bed for hours whilst waiting to fall asleep to silence, or while talking with Jaehyun as they both laid in their respective parts of their bunk bed.
And a lot of it came down to one thing, Sicheng wanted someone to compliment his weaknesses, much as a boyfriend would to a girlfriend or vice versa. Sicheng knew that what he truly wanted wouldn't go over too well with the general public, or anyone else that would care to stick their nose into his business. He wanted Yuta to be that someone for him. He was afraid of even saying anything about him around his group of friends, even though they knew about his fascination and preference for the male specimen as opposed to the female side of things. He just didn't want them to know about his particular fixation on Yuta, because he knows that one way or another that they'd somehow spread it so it reached the man himself. He just really admired Yuta, because Sicheng himself was once in Yuta's shoes, and he wanted to be back in them.
Before he arrived at college, Sicheng was everything Yuta was. He was into dance, specifically traditional Chinese dances, he was popular and had many, many friends, he was very outgoing, and he believed himself to be very attractive, he still was really he just didn't see himself as such any longer. The stress of college and everything surrounding that lifestyle hit him like a ton of bricks, and threw off his entire personality and lifestyle instantaneously.
As Jaehyun caught wind of Sicheng looking over at Yuta, and him not speaking for a few moments, he decided to insert his thoughts about the situation that was put before him.
"Oooooo, someone's got the hots for Nakamoto." He spoke, a joking tone in his voice as he poked Sicheng's shoulder.
"I do not!" Sicheng spoke rather loudly, causing Jaehyun to jump back in his seat, the other people at the table to look at Sicheng surprised, and most importantly, and the worst thing for Sicheng at that moment, Yuta to look over in his direction due to the loudness of his voice a moment prior.
Sicheng looked at Yuta and licked his lips quickly, shaking his head, entering the state of mind where he wanted to get up and bolt out of the college, get back into his bed, and not come out of it for any reason or for anyone at all.
Instead, he quickly grabbed his bag from off of the floor, basically scrambling to gather it up from the floor, moved his chair back, stood up, and quickly walk off in the opposite direction that Yuta was in towards his next class which was Music Theory. He didn't really know where he was going, he just wanted to get away from Yuta's eyesight as quick as possible to avoid embarrassment and unnecessary attention. He'd looked over the class schedule that was given to him, and looked at the room number for the Music Theory classroom once, and thus, he was wandering around like an aimless puppy, albeit a panicked one as well. Eventually however, he found himself in the right classroom, and quickly sat in the seat in the very back of the room, away from the students that were already in the classroom, and were conversing with each other towards the front and middles of the rows of seats that were within the classroom.
Before arriving at college, Sicheng was very much into the arts, and that is basically all that he signed up for class wise for his college tenure. Biology was just a course that everyone had to take at least once during their college years, but he wasn't sure why. He signed up for the Arts classes which included Music Theory, The History of Dance, The History of Music, and Dance. His favorite past time used to be dancing, but now it was sleeping due to his energy levels being at an all time low.
Because it was a new semester, he had no idea where any of these classes were, so throughout his day he was sure that he was going to be running around aimlessly, due to the fact that he left his class schedule back at his dorm in his rushed exit that morning. He didn't mind though, as he was usually late to his classes as it was.
As the bell for the class to begin started, he looked around the room, not seeing anyone that he was too familiar with, so he sighed a huge sigh of relief. It would've been nice to have a friend in there, but he didn't mind that he didn't have anyone in the class with him. He worked better without his friends around him anyways. Too much distraction and urges to talk to them rather than do his work for the class.
That is, until Yuta walked through the door.
Sicheng didn't really notice him until later on in the class, when the teacher was assigning them seats.
"Kang Seulgi." Professor Taeyeon read out, assigning students their seats.
"Dong Sicheng."
Sicheng hurried over to his seat behind Seulgi and sit down, sitting his backpack on the floor roughly, sighing.
"Nakamoto Yuta."
Sicheng's eyes widened as he stared down at his desk, as he was sure he turned paper white realizing that Yuta was positioned directly behind him. His worst nightmare had come true. Each class at SM University was around 3 months long, which meant that he would have to deal with having his favorite human sit right behind him for that amount of time. He wasn't sure that he was going to make it all that time without doing something stupid or embarrassing himself to the point of no return in Yuta's eyes or those of his classmates.
He looked up slowly, just as Yuta was walking by him to sit down in his seat, and he whipped his head around not to quickly, but enough to just catch a glimpse of Yuta's face as he walked past him, and he sighed heavily, shaking his head.
Halfway through the class when Professor Taeyeon had walked out to use the restroom, everyone had started to talk to one another, and Sicheng just sat in silence. For a few moments that is.
He felt a pecking on the back of his shoulder and felt his entire body tense up as he licked his lips and slowly turned around. Yuta was looking him straight in his face as he asked him a question.
"Not to intrude or be nosy or anything, but are you okay? I heard you yelling about something in the library early, then you looked at me, then like, bolted out of there." He asked the younger male with a surprisingly worried look on his face.
Sicheng attempted to relax himself in his seat, but most likely looked like an awkward mess. Much like a tree as a gust of wind was coming through the area where the tree was positioned. He was questioning why Yuta was worried about him, much less even talking to him in the first place. Why would someone like Yuta talk to someone like Sicheng? He couldn't get it through his mind or even make sense of any of it, but he responded anyways.
"Yeah. I-I-I'm fine. Thank you for a-asking though." Sicheng tripped over his words, still turned around looking at Yuta, expecting the conversation to continue, which it did much to his further surprise.
"You sure? I know we don't really know each other but, I'd kinda like to know you." Yuta spoke, his wide smile finally showing it's face.
Sicheng felt his heart drop into his stomach as he gulped slightly and nodded towards Yuta.
"Y-Yeah I'm sure. And right back at you dude."
"Dude? Way too early to be calling him dude. You don't even say dude to any of your friends, moron." Sicheng thought to himself.
Yuta chuckled and looked over at Sicheng, leaning towards him, way too close for Sicheng's liking at the moment, or at any point in time really.
"Well, I live about two doors down from your room. We could get together and study sometime, that way we could, I don't know, get to know more about one another." Yuta spoke straightforwardly.
Sicheng blinked a few times rapidly in succession, quickly nodded and turned around and faced forwards in his seat as he heard the door open, and Professor Taeyeon's heels clacking on the tile floor of the classroom. Yuta smiled and shook his head and listened as Professor Taeyeon continued her lecture and lesson.
After the hour and thirty minute class, Yuta closed his book, his notebook, packed up his pencils, and put them all in the self-designated spaces within his bag as he leaned forward to Sicheng to inform him which number room he was in their dorm, but he was cut off as Sicheng hurriedly got up and fled the classroom. Yuta sighed and leaned back in his seat, grabbing one of the straps for his backpack before getting up and putting them both around his shoulders before walking out of the classroom through the door.
Yuta was a complex person, despite people having their presumptions about him as a person due to his reputation around campus. He didn't want to be in that college, he was forced to by his parents. But upon attending the few classes he had prior to this, he started to change his mind. He got really into the dance aspect of the college, and that was what he was learning towards, more so than the generalization of music that was offered in many of the other classes that the college had available for any willing students to partake in. Sure, he liked parties, but he was a terrible people person. The only reason that people were his friend were to be just that, "Yuta's friend". He didn't have any close ties with anyone, just acquaintances here and there, and that is the worst assumption that people had about him. He knew that everyone thought he was just some pretty, rich, smart, popular kid. But that wasn't the case. He was good looking, yes. Rich? Sort of. Smart? Absolutely. Popular? Not quite. Much like Sicheng, the stress of college was getting to Yuta too, but nobody knew it except for his roommate, Taeyong. He would put on this facade as if everything was going completely fine, and then the moment that he stepped into his dorm room at the end of the day, all of that faded away and into his true self. Yuta was a funny, outgoing person, but college had taken a toll on him that made him a cold, repressed, introverted person, and that's what showed in his dorm room. He was moody, and he was depressed. Not depressed as in 'I had a bad day.' depressed, but actually depressed. He couldn't tell you why however, but he didn't need a reason. He put the reputation that he had around campus before his actual needs and his actual wants. He put fake Yuta before himself, real Yuta. He wanted to make everyone around him happy and for them to see him as a likeable person, when in reality, he himself thought of himself as a person that nobody would want to be around. He was trying, he really was. And this is why he wanted to reach out to Sicheng. Because he saw everything in him that he saw in himself on a daily basis. Unmotivated, disheveled, generally sloppy looking appearance, they were all who Yuta really was at that point in time. Except Sicheng was like this on a regular basis, which was most likely much more healthy than what Yuta was doing. He was repressing his feelings until he got back in his dorm room, while Sicheng wouldn't care if anyone saw or knew how he truly felt at any given moment in time. This is why Yuta admired Sicheng, and wanted to get to know him better. He used the studying part of his offer earlier in the class as a scapegoat to try and get Sicheng to his room, so he could learn more about the younger male, as he was fascinated in him. That was another thing that Yuta was worried about constantly, his fascination with Sicheng. He'd never directly spoken to him, but he'd known about him for quite a while at that point in time. So much so that he started watching him from afar, admiring him. He wanted Sicheng's confidence, or seeming confidence. He wanted to be able to leave his room every day and not give a shit what he looked like, and he wanted to show everyone around him the real him, and not the fake 'party animal popular kid' Yuta had been known as all his life. And most importantly, it scared Yuta that he liked Sicheng this much, because he knew that everyone in school was going to think that it was taboo that he liked another male, especially when practically every female student was interested in him. It scared him so bad that he even repressed that, and nobody knew that he was into men, let alone Dong Sicheng.
Throughout the rest of the day, Yuta went to all of his classes, that of which he had memorized the locations of after looking at his class schedule that he brought with him and kept in his hands until he entered his next class for the given hour and half period of the college school day.
After the final bell for the day had rang and everyone, including the teachers, had started making their way out of the classrooms and buildings to go either home or to their dorms, Yuta quickly followed suit. He walked out of the college and headed off towards his dorm, putting his earbuds in his ears that were connected to his phone that rested gently on the inside of his jacket pocket, and walked towards his dorm. As he approached the dorm, he stopped and took in his surroundings. The birds flying overhead, the slight smell of lavender coming from the lavender bush that was planted outside the dorm, and the beautiful image of the cherry blossom trees blowing in the wind all made him smile slightly before heading into his dorm and to his dorm room. As he entered his room, he looked and saw Taeyong sitting at his respective desk, seemingly doing his homework, and took his earbuds out, stopping the music on his phone from continuing to play into his ears. He wrapped his earbuds around his phone and tossed it lightly onto the bunk bed on the bottom bunk, and sighed heavily, rubbing his face. He threw his jacket into the corner along with a few garments of Taeyong's, those of which Yuta would take to the dorm's laundry room sometime in the week to wash them for both parties involved. He then walked past Taeyong and into the bathroom to shower. He grabbed a towel, and stripped himself of his clothes, tossing them into the corner slowly and stepping foot into the shower, turning on the warm water. He leaned his head back as the warm water hit his body, letting the stress from the day roll down his back and off of his shoulders, relaxing in the least bit within the shower, underneath the water as he was drenched in it.
After he was all finished, he stopped the water, got out of the shower, dried himself off, and walked out back into the dorm room to get dressed. He leaned down, making sure that he was still covered, and grabbed a pair of shorts, a solid black tank top, and a pair of grey socks from his drawer, and shut it once he'd retrieved his clothes. He walked back into the bathroom, removed his towel, and dressed himself.
He walked out of the bathroom once more and was greeted by Taeyong no longer doing his work, instead, he was looking over at him.
"Can I help you?" Yuta asked, shaking his head, looking over at Taeyong, confused as to why he was being stared at so hard.
"Me? Not really. But you're gonna help somebody later. I can tell by the way you're acting. You're never this, clean. Was that rude? Oh well. The point is that you're going to have someone over and I'm going to need to get out of here so you can do your thing. Sound good to you?" Taeyong spoke as he sat backwards in his chair, his legs on either side of the back of it.
Yuta tilted his head and spoke lowly.
"I..don't know where you got any of that but I'm not 'helping' anyone. Not like that you nasty ass. I'm helping someone study, and I didn't want to look like a bum while doing it. Sue me." Yuta spoke back to Taeyong before heading over to the bunk bed in their room, laying on the bottom half of it which was his assigned half.
"What're you gonna help this person study? Anatomy? You gonna show them how to-" Taeyong spoke before being cut off.
"Yah!" Yuta spoke back, almost yelling.
"You said you were gonna give us some space so, do that. Go." Yuta looked over at Taeyong who snickered and got up, looking back at Yuta before leaving the room completely.
"Just..do it on your bed." Taeyong smirked as he opened the door and left, shutting the door behind him.
Afterwards, Yuta laid in his bed for a while, looking up at the mattress above him, thinking about a lot of things. He kept thinking about one thing specifically however, and that was Sicheng. And then it dawned upon him that he still had to somehow inform Sicheng of what room number was his so he could come over and study with him. Study being used loosely in that thought.
He sat up in his bed, forgetting to turn, and hit his head on the wood that was placed above him.
"Shi-Shit." He said, holding his head, shaking his head before getting up off of the bed, walking over to Taeyong's desk.
"He's gotta have something about Sicheng in here, like a phone number or something." Yuta thought to himself as he looked around the desk, being careful as to not move anything that he didn't mean to be touching.
He then saw Taeyong's phone laying beside of his closed Apple laptop, and he grabbed it.
"Please don't have a password, please don't have a password." He spoke, mumbling to himself as he turned his phone on and swiped up to see if it indeed had a password or not.
To his relief, the phone immediately unlocked.
"Of course he wouldn't have a password."
He slowly moved to the contacts section of Taeyong's phone and scoured the contacts list, looking for Sicheng's number. The only reason he was doing this is because he knew how close the two were with one another, and if he didn't think for sure that Taeyong had Sicheng's number, he wouldn't be doing this in the first place. He hurriedly found Sicheng's number, then took out his own phone, putting him into his own contacts list. The urge to look through Taeyong's pictures was overwhelming, he had to admit, but he resisted it and closed the phone, putting it back into it's original position on the table beside his laptop, turned off and put into sleep mode.
He then walked back over to his bed, sat down and looked down at his phone. The one person he wanted to talk to but never actually attempted to was at his very fingertips, and he was almost ecstatic about it. He licked his lips and shook his head before pressing the 'Call' option under Sicheng's name, hoping that he would pick up. A few moments passed, and Yuta was glad that he wasn't answering, because he didn't want to make a fool out of himself on the telephone, because he felt like he would at that moment.
"Don't pick up, Don't pick up, Don't pick up." Yuta spoke out loud as he realized that texting Sicheng probably would've been the better option.
"Hello? Who is this?" He heard from the other end of the line, Sicheng's voice sending goosebumps up his spine.
Yuta coughed a little bit, clearing his throat before responding to the younger male.
"H-Hey. It's Yuta. I'm just calling to let you know about that little study date we planned earlier today, and to tell you which room was mine so you wouldn't get lost."
"Study date? Really dumbass?"
"O-O-Oh..right. W-Well, what room is y-your's?" Sicheng spoke from the other side of the line, each stutter coming from his mouth making Yuta smile slightly.
"I'm just two doors down from you, R-Room 13."
"Oh. A-Alright. I-I-I'll be over there in a f-few minutes." Sicheng spoke as he sniffled, almost as if he'd been crying.
"Sounds good to me. See you in a few minutes then." Yuta spoke as he hung up the phone.
Yuta sat there, his face becoming red as soon as the phone call ended as the realization that Sicheng was on his way to his room, and that they were going to be completely alone. And then he thought back to the phone call, and how Sicheng had sounded. He thought about how he was phrasing his words, and the sniffle at the end of the call that he had heard and then he thought about why Sicheng sounded like he did. Yuta thought about Sicheng crying, but that was too much for him, so he moved on and pushed that thought aside, because if he thought of that, he himself would've started crying at least a little bit and then that wouldn't have really aided in the first greeting that he would give Sicheng in a few minutes.
He looked at the floor before hearing a knock at the door, and he immediately jumped up from his bed and stared towards the door. He knew who it was, but for some reason he felt the need to reassure that it was indeed Sicheng.
"Hello?" he spoke loudly so the person on the other side of the door could hear him clearly enough to respond.
"H-Hi?" The person responded.
That was Sicheng's voice. Yuta knew it too well.
He walked towards the door and sighed, grabbing the door knob, his hand shaking slightly as he turned it and opened the door. He looked up and saw Sicheng standing there, books in hand. He wanted to take a mental picture, or, even an actual picture with his phone of what he saw. Sicheng looked adorable, and to top it all off, he was wearing glasses.
Yuta smiled widely and moved aside, allowing room for Sicheng to enter the room.
"Didn't know you wore glasses." Yuta spoke, voicing his curiosities.
"I n-need them to r-read." Sicheng spoke back as he made his way into the room, shuffling his feet across the carpet hurriedly.
Yuta raised his eyebrows, the fact that Sicheng needed glasses somehow only added to his cuteness in Yuta's mind. He shut the door slowly and turned around, looking at Sicheng.
"You know you can sit down right, the chairs aren't going to bite you." Yuta chuckled a little bit as he motioned to the chair that was underneath Taeyong's desk.
He shut the door behind him and walked over, grabbing the chair that was under his own desk, moving it out, then moving Taeyong's chair next to it. He then walked over and grabbed Sicheng's books, and looked at him as he did so.
"They look heavy. Just come over and sit down, please." He spoke as he walked over, laying them onto his desk, sitting down in his chair.
He tensed up a little bit as Sicheng sat down beside him.
It was cute that Sicheng thought they were going to do any actual studying, Yuta thought.
"S-S-So. Should we just s-start?" Sicheng asked, causing Yuta to chuckle a little bit.
Dong Sicheng was going to be a problem that would only add on to Yuta's list. But this was a problem he didn't care to have.