Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's twenty minutes past twelve and the walls within the dorm echo with whispering raps and the scratches of pen tips on butcher paper.

"Hyung," Lee Daehwi, nearing 18, a kind and compassionate soul given minimal sleep hours of 5, stands in front of Im Youngmin's room, where all the sounds are coming from. "Please stop. It's twelve. I need to sleep. Hell, we all need to sleep. Save it for the morning."

Im Youngmin, 20, Master of Unintentionally Causing Loud Noises and Generally Dropping Things Whenever He Holds Them, snaps his head up when he hears a voice. His face shifts with a healthy mix between relief that it wasn't a ghost and confusion at Daehwi's appearance.

"It's late? I'm sorry, I forgot. But Donghyunnie's sleeping so fine, so I assumed the noises weren't that loud," he pulls out an earphone and Daehwi smooths his face into a neutral expression, too tired from having woken up to be mad at his hyung, his dormmate, the protector of this household.

"No offence to Donghyun-hyung, but that guy will sleep through an earthquake and an industrial-sized drill going at max volume next to his ear without even opening his eyes," he hopes his explanation is gentle enough. God forbid Daehwi breaks Youngmin's feather-light, sleep-deprived and inspired heart at one in the morning. "Maybe using him as a basis for how loud you're rapping is a bit-"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence.

"Oi fuckers," Park Woojin, 18, soccer and dance fanatic, a complete and utter embodiment of a nightmare after 11 pm, snarls, hair twenty-four directions of spins and twirls on his head, one eye open. "You're so quiet they can hear you two dorms over."

"Whua-?" Daehwi spins, maybe to avoid Woojin's swipe at his head, maybe to go back to his room to sleep. 

Someone or something slams onto their door.

"Go the fuck to sleep you stupid hardworking shits! I get that you have shit to do well in but fuck it's like one let me sleep!" Jeon Soyeon, 19, small, owns many bandannas, can squeeze through a tennis racket, lives two dorms over, screams from outside the door.

There's the sound of flicking light switches and a cacophony of voices from the hallway. Youngmin swallows, unassuming eyes blown wide. Daehwi hits the space between his eyebrows, digging his palm into skin. Woojin sags, satoori and gibberish sprawling out of his mouth, slumping against the doorway of Youngmin and Donghyun's room.

Donghyun starts to grunt and one of his leg falls off the bed.

"I'll take this one back," Daehwi hooks one of Woojin's arm under his shoulder and drags the redhead away, grunting and avoiding halfhearted jabs, "goodnight, morning, whatever hyung. Try to sleep."

Youngmin nods numbly, still hearing Soyeon argue with someone outside the door. He glances at Donghyun and heaves up his one leg onto the bed, huffing.

The lyrics of his song sit incomplete. 

"You're coming home for the anniversary, yes, dear?" His mother hums into the phone. 

"Yeah of course I am mum," Donghyun tells her because he is a Good Son. "Do you want me to pick anything up for the kids?"

"I have a request this year, from both your father and I actually. We've been wanting to see this for a while now."

"What is it?" He asks, thinking it'll be something along the lines of good grades and health and a fixed sleep schedule.

"Bring a date."

"Uh," Kim Donghyun, 19, a good son, once bowled over Jin Longguo on the way running to class, mastered the art of self-denial to a Doctorate qualification. 

And single since the day he exited his mother's womb.

"Um, I don't have a date? I haven't dated like, at all? For 19 years I've been alone? Mother you raised me you should have this knowledge instilled in you?" He hopes his mother, the woman who grants him life, would understand the predicament and outright hassle of finding a date for his parents’ wedding anniversary because that seems to be the trend nowadays. Four couples were legitimised recently on the basis of 'it's [insert family event/obligation here] let's meet my family'. Donghyun does not want to belong to the other class of people who are scouring left right and centre for a fake date home for Chuseok, the other big thing. He's beyond that. He can get a date without using his parents’ anniversary as an excuse. 

"Get a date then. I better see you home with someone decent. I have to go, your aunt is calling for me."

"Mum-"

The line cuts short.

"It’s like a week away," he tells the empty line. "How am I supposed to get a date that fast?"

"I may or may not have a problem." Donghyun regrets his announcement as soon as he approaches their hangout spot. Sihyun, 18, a delicate beauty, drinks coffee that is 'black like my life', owns more leather jackets than anyone has shirts, is combing through Longguo's hair, whose head is on Sihyun's lap, back is on Woodam's and legs are resting on Sze Kai's. About three table sitters snort audibly, Sihyun being the loudest. Although not afflicted with the symptoms of melodramatics, Donghyun can be a potential handful when the word 'problem' arises at the daily in-between classes rendezvous. Judging from the fact that he isn't screaming in hysterics or throwing himself onto the ground, no one's panicked just yet.

"Who died?" Soyeon asks for the sake of asking, reaching for Woodam's cookie batch.

"More importantly, where do we hide the body?" Sihyun, ever so insightful, offers his wisdom. Donghyun finds it concerning he potentially knows where to hide a body, but Sihyun knows a lot of things people don’t expect normal people to have knowledge on how to escape the booth of a running car while handcuffed and bound, so Donghyun really should have known better.

"Are you okay?" Sze Kai makes eye contact with Donghyun, blinking and tipping her head to the side. 

We could talk somewhere else if that makes you uncomfortable, is what she's trying to convey, eyes glancing down to Longguo's legs, it's fine I can just throw his legs off.

He shakes his head and smiles at her. It's seriously not a big deal.

“It’s not a big deal, come on,” he whines.

"If it's murder then it's definitely a problem," Sihyun snorts, attractively and aggressively, digging the tips of his fingers into Longguo's head. The Chinese boy doesn't even grouse, still as a potential dead body. Donghyun should worry, but he knows Sihyun is too fond of Longguo to potentially murder the guy in his sleep. Not that he'll ever admit it.

"Guys, come on, let the kid speak," Park Woodam, 20, can reach whistle register, wears glasses’ frame as a fashion statement, an overall blessing to mankind, attempts to interrupt, but Soyeon's voice clambers over him, throwing around places where Donghyun can hide a body and which country offers asylum for accidental murder.

"Accidental murder is manslaughter though?" Donghyun interrupts his friend’s rant. Soyeon leans back and contemplates her words

“Eh, same difference anyways,” she waves it aside.

"My parents’ anniversary is in around a week," Donghyun begins, trying to sit down. Woodam shifts to let him squeeze in between Soyeon and him.

"Okay and?" Soyeon squints at him. "This ain't like, a timetable for us to guarantee your alibi, right? I gotta check my schedule first fam."

"Do you ever think of anything other than murder?" Ng Sze Kai, 21, plays tennis and sails on yachts every Sunday, has the face of an angel but the personality of a dried salt lake, owns a Pitbull back in Hong Kong whom she Skypes every day, tells Soyeon to her face.

"Just tell me what you want me to say and we'll rehearse," Soyeon continues like she hasn't heard anything.

"Don’t listen to her,” Sze Kai cuts in.

"My parents want me to get a date, for our annual anniversary dinner," Donghyun throws in the words, with a flimsy hope that his voice will be pushed under the rising volume of Sze Kai and Soyeon's arguing.

Sihyun accidentally pokes Longguo on the eye. Woodam drops a slice of peach. It's a dead awkward silence. Not until Longguo's head rolls off Sihyun's lap and he sits up, looking around with one eye open. He sees the circle of people surrounding Donghyun and drops his head onto the table with a loud 'thunk. Sze Kai dives to rescue the falling bottle of chamomile tea, hugging it to her chest.

The silence isn't even close to cracked.

"Well shit," Soyeon finally says. For lack of a better exclamation. 

"Didn't know your folks wanted you two to continue on that fast," Woodam looks at him.

"What? Who?" No one can blame Donghyun for being confused. He’s been single since birth. There’s no discernible ways there is a ‘you two’. He is a single unit, literally and relationship-ly. It’s always me, myself and I with Kim Donghyun. No us, you and me or we. Nuh uh. None non nada zilch.

"Shit shit my class is starting," Soyeon squints at her watch, springs up, arms throwing books and the entire table worth of food into her two bags. 

"See you later, nerds," Soyeon salutes them, accidentally smacking Woodam with her bag. One of her leg gets stuck on the bench and she hobbles away, kicking air and missing a boot.

Sihyun picks it up and throws it at her face. Soyeon expertly manoeuvres two bags, one-leggedly sprinting and catching a boot with her forearm. By the time she dives through the canteen door, held open by some girl outside, mouth not hiding her surprise at Soyeon’s frankly fucking weird ensemble, she’s all good, both boots on feet.

"Ask Im Youngmin," Longguo mumbles while Woodam and Sze Kai are busy arguing with Sihyun. Donghyun looks at the top of Longguo’s head. Jin Longguo, 20, alias Kim Yongguk, sleeps 20 hours a day, is actually a koala in human form, has two cats, gives obscure but helpful advice – kind of like a more selfless and harmless Dumbledore.

"That's...not a bad idea, you're right, hyung."

"Maybe ask him first."

Donghyun waits outside of Youngmin's lecture hall, face planted onto the wall next to the door. After walking Youngmin to and from class three times in the span of two days, Donghyun feels that his actions are vaguely concurrent to the lyrics of 'Every Step You Take'. He nervously taps the ground in a loop of SOS in Morse Code, the sound echoing loudly on the floor and the hallway. A girl walks out of the hall, presumably to check who's tapdancing outside the hallway with cheap shoes on and cringes when she sees him.

Donghyun hasn't even done anything to her and she looks like she wants to get as far away from him as possible. ASAP pronto L-O-L fast.

"Is Youngmin-hyung still-"

"Go in," the corner of her mouth twists and collapses. She storms off, high heels click-clacking even louder than Donghyun's cheap 10,000 won runners doing the flamenco. He pokes a head inside the hall and sees Youngmin, red hair with bad roots, head in hands, a Picture of Dejection.

“Uh, did I come at the wrong time?” He asks the still boy. For a while, Donghyun feels like he’s got the wrong room, due to his irregular visits to his roommate over the month that encompassed tests, assignments, four essays, a job and babysitting Woojin, who is a Full Grown Man, to his words. Donghyun had cooed over the boy and squished his cheeks to his chagrin. “Hello, hyung? You there?”

The hair groans.

He meant the person under the hair but close enough.

“You alive, hyung?” He inches closer, too afraid to touch another college student without accidentally a) potentially anger them, leading to a violent death, dismemberment or being sworn at, b) make them burst into tears and having to comfort them or c) have something thrown at his face. This extensive knowledge comes as a package deal in befriending Jeon Soyeon and Kim Sihyun, during exam times or meeting them regularly. Or just being in university in general.

"Oh, Donghyunnie, hey kid," Youngmin's forehead is visible at last, followed by his eyes, nose and lips. "Sorry, I'm okay now."

Donghyun must've looked like he doubts every word that comes out of Youngmin's mouth, because the redhead sits up straighter, pulling himself together.

"It was just," Youngmin slaps his face, "another confession."

"What was the reason this time?" He's genuinely interested. The whole campus is genuinely interested. Im Youngmin is one handsome lad, so according to nature and social hierarchy, he's near the upper echelon of the metaphorical food chain. It comes as no surprise when girls and boys and people in between confess to him, the numbers increasing steadily to a point where Youngmin would receive about four confessions a week on average. He had turned down every single person thus far, since times immemorial but also since he found out saying no is a viable option.

That's the boring part.

The funny and downright sad part is that his reasons are bullshit. Actual. Legit. Crap. He had told Kang Sira he couldn't go out with her because her fourth toe on her left leg bends weirdly out of position when she dances and that's the deal breaker for him.

Sira left in a blur of confusion and 'how the fuck does he know that.' She was the first but not the last.

The strings of quite frankly fucking weird reasons continued as Youngmin played himself as weirdo, telling Huang Minghao that the sky has clouds, so they should be like the earth and the sky, never touching.  He also started asking questions that no one know the answers to because he ran out of bullshit reasons to trip people over, the most recent being ‘tell me the date that Alexander the Great got a hamster’.

The correct answer was he had a pet horse and a dog, not a hamster. He received the horse Brucephalus at age 13 in 344 BC after winning a fight with his father Philip. Some cities were named after Brucephalus’ honour.

"How do you expect anyone to know any of this?" He remembered asking, because he had told Youngmin about that piece of information browsing on Wikipedia one bored day.

"That's how you scare them away Hyunnie," Youngmin told him, gravely, like he's been through three world wars and a civil uprising. “No one know this much useless knowledge. It’s a foolproof plan.”

It becomes a sort of reality TV show that their dorm, nicknamed affectionately Brand New Boys' Humble Abode, and the entire school tune in and out from. There are bets running from all the faculties to guess what bullshit reasons and questions Youngmin can come up to reject new admirers. The majority of the population had either confessed for real to Youngmin or confessed for laughs just to hear the reason why he would reject them. 

Soyeon got 'what if you fucking kill me in my sleep go away you midget' and she nearly punched him. Woodam received a 'you bake cookies and I'm allergic to ovens, so this is where we draw the line for friendship and love.' Youngmin told Longguo that he doesn't do bestiality and it took their squad a while to realise that Youngmin not only insulted the sleepy guy on one level but multiple levels. Sihyun was close to, but Longguo threatened bodily harm to Youngmin and the question was dropped, to the horror of one Im Youngmin and one smug Kim Sihyun.

Sze Kai and Donghyun, they haven't tried yet. Not that they want to. Sze Kai has her dog. Donghyun doesn't want to jump onto bandwagons. It's the number one thing on his Hoe don’t do it list.

Just because Youngmin rejects these people doesn't mean he doesn't feel bad. Normally Donghyun is tasked with the duty of hunting the redhead down and sit with him, awkwardly patting his shoulder and telling him it's not his fault if he doesn't want to date someone who he doesn't know or have feelings for. For someone who gave such brutal reasons not to date someone, he’s surprisingly very reflective of his words. Donghyun sat through everything on the Regretting My Life’s Decisions scale: from wailing to snotty crying to self-deprecative wallowing. Today seems like a bout of self-deprecative wallowing is about to ensue.

“You alright?” He makes expressive eye contact with Youngmin’s head and his proffered palm, nodding as Youngmin sighs and closes his eyes, shoulders lax. Donghyun steps a careful foot forward and skims the top of Youngmin’s head carefully, the rest of his body tense from too many close calls with Soyeon to not take this seriously. When the redhead doesn’t make any sudden movement to potentially harm Donghyun, he scoots in closer and weaves his fingers into Youngmin’s hair.

He counts to five in his head.

Four, five…

“It’s just that I didn’t really know how to respond to people liking me that I’m like this. But it’s frustrating sometimes too because I can’t stop my knee-jerk reactions. I don’t want to be an asshole to everyone I’m so sorry should I go chase her? I feel like I should. But she saw me once in the hallway or something and told me that my visuals are exactly her type and she wanted to break through my impenetrable walls. I’m just a loser who has no filter why would anyone want to date me? Why would you only date someone because of their looks that’s so selfish oh my god don’t say that to me I feel like I should be something to match my visuals.” Youngmin starts to run on the sheer force of speech and the accumulation of pressure on himself to spit out twenty syllables per second. Donghyun isn’t a reliable counter, but Youngmin, besides from being a notorious heartbreaker, breaks down in rapid Busan dialect when he’s stressed.

“Hyung,” Donghyun murmurs, “hey hyung, you spoke really fast. I couldn’t catch most of it.” Or any of it.

“Sorry,” Youngmin sobs into his palms, “I’m a terrible bean. I’ll never redeem myself.”

“One more rejection isn’t going to condemn you to hell, hyung.”

Youngmin at this point just expends fast gibberish at his palms and Donghyun is subjected to more groaning and wallowing. It’s cold and he shivers, the weather is gradually collapsing into winter, winds harsher and more determined to get under his skin. His teeth chattering must’ve roused Youngmin from the depths of his despair, rattling the maternal instincts in his DNA codes, because his head slips from Donghyun’s grip and he’s squinting at him, mouth pulled into a frown.

“You, why is there no warm jacket on you?” He gestures with his head at Donghyun’s passably decent attire, but probably a red flag in Youngmin’s Wear Clothes According to the Weather mentality, because he’s slipping off his own trench coat and draping it over Donghyun before he can argue that his leather jacket that he nicked off Sihyun is plenty warm thank you very much.

“You’re too much,” he complains, sitting still so that Youngmin can force his arms inside the sleeves.

“You wear too little. Suck it up princess,” Youngmin scoffs.

“Hyungie,” he seizes the redhead’s wrist, “I need a favour.”

“What?”

“I need someone to come home with me for my parents’ anniversary.”

Youngmin squints at him.

“Are we talking like, close friends-wise or like, date-wise?”

“A bit of both?” He bares his teeth, a look of ‘please help little clueless me’ in his eyes. “I’d rather it you than some random person to be a fake date?”

“I don’t think your parents care who it is anyway. Last time they were pretty okay with me, weren’t they?”

“But they were fine with Sihyun and Soyeon too, doesn’t mean I should take them. They’ll murder me on the way home and I’ll only be a sad cautionary tale for the young university-aged children of the dangers of asking your murderous friends to be fake dates home for their parents’ wedding anniversary.”

“Now who’s melodramatic?” Youngmin rolls his eyes. Fondly, because Donghyun is cute, okay? He’s a very cute man and he’s going to exploit that until Youngmin gives in.

“Please help me. What if they disown me? I can’t have that happen.”

“I’ll think about it. I’ll pick you up from class tomorrow and tell you,” Donghyun relents his grip on Youngmin’s grip but holds his gaze, lips pouting to guilt-trip the redhead into agreeing. “Come on, I think we should get that coffee.”

“But what did you tell her?”

A silence, Youngmin digs the front of his boots onto the ground. Some fast Busan satoori slipping to the wind.

“What?”

“She can’t speak Middle Earth’s Elvish.”

“Hyung, nobody speaks Elvish. There are like 20 people that do. In the world.”

“Maybe so, but I asked her to name me one language and she couldn’t.”

“You do know not everyone know these trivial things, right?”

“Look, I was frazzled that she told me the reason she sought me out was because of my face. Elvish was the first thing my mind jumped to.”

Donghyun laughs while Youngmin swings his fist at his face.

Chapter Text

“What’s wrong with your face?” Woo Jinyoung, 19, notorious for expressing violent and salty love, dyed his hair pink due to a bet, swears instead of speaks, just back from his Japanese study tour thing.

 “What’s your problem?” Youngmin bites back, no venom at all in his words. Jinyoung stretches his arms above his head and bumps into his shoulder, rolling his eyes.

“Tell me before I’m bored.”

“Donghyunnie asked me to come home with him to his parents’ anniversary dinner.”

“This is a problem because…?”

“I feel like last time I made a shit impression on his parents and they wouldn’t want me there? Like there are plenty of other people he can ask to come home with, but he asked me, so it’s a really fucking big burden what if I embarrass him in front of his parents I’d be a really shitty friend-”

“First of all,” Jinyoung holds up a palm, “you’re too fucking fast. Slow down or I will ignore you.”

Youngmin opens his mouth to continue, but the pink-haired monstrosity widens his eyes, verbally casting him aside with a wave of his hand.

“Heard you rejected another one today. She’s fucking vocal about,” Jinyoung tacks vaguely expressive fingers at the end of his sentence, the your customary shitty riddle talk show loud and clear without words. “Her squad is up your ass. Watch out.”

“I told her why after she failed the quiz thing! But she just left!”

“Well that sucks for you. Don’t look up there’s a shitface cunt heading this way,” Jinyoung loops a protective arm around the back of his neck, humming a couple of threats inside his throat. People pass by them by the bench, but Youngmin can hear receding footsteps, rewinding back to his seat.

"Im Youngmin,” someone tells him.

“Is it too late to change my name?” He asks Jinyoung who rolls his eyes and holds up a fist to the person behind Youngmin, eyeliner making his cat eyes fiercer and sharper in his signature Fuck you in eye glares. People have cried when Jinyoung glared at them. Someone tripped and walked into a bush. Their squad generally avoid his eyes when he glares with eyeliner.

“What are you, mute?” The guy jeers. “Got your pink bitch to speak for you, aight?”

“Can I punch him, hyung?” Jinyoung grips the back of his head.

“Let me kill him first,” Youngmin shrugs the hand off, rotating his spine from the bench, seemingly looking like he has all the time in the world (he does, no more classes for the day) and seemingly careless with whatever goes down with this confrontation, one leg swinging, an eyebrow arched.

“What.”

“You stole my girl, you fucking faggot,” the guy spits. Youngmin might have known him from somewhere, but it’s too risky to explore where the vague recollection of what possibly is one Asian face amongst thousands of other Asian faces. People are pausing, craning their heads and pausing in their power walks from buildings to stare, not even hiding the loud whispers.

His favourite so far is “Isn’t that the guy that’s always following Yujin around?”

Yujin was the latest rejectee, the one that admired him just for his facial structures. Youngmin didn’t receive her confessions as well as he could’ve, the very mention of ‘I like you for your face’ grates on his nerves.

“If by ‘my girl’, you meant Yujin-ssi, then I didn’t know of her until today,” Youngmin explains, knowing full well the reasonable approach wouldn’t work on guys like these. They’re irrationally jealous of their pursued partners targets that the minute a minor inconvenience arrives they blame it on external factors instead of their inability to even attain a relationship.

“Bastard,” the guy grinds out between his teeth, “what do you know?”

“That she was never interested in you and now you’re blaming it on me?”

“Oh like you’re so much better,” Threatening Teeth snarls, “yeh a fucking faggot with your little pimp gang and that little bitch on a tight leash of yours.”

“Donghyunnie,” Jinyoung breathes behind him. Youngmin can hear the unvoiced What do you want with our alpaca child, fist slowly tensing from the knuckles, the rows of his teeth grinding on each other.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing, maybe something. Maybe, fuck the pimp and leave me and Yujin alone. Keep your fucking relationship and stay out of mine.”

Before Youngmin can even spare him a comment, the guy sneers, throwing back his head, “I bet you can’t even keep a relationship, loser boy.”

“Wanna bet?” Youngmin asks.

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Jinyoung interferes from behind, agitated from watching from the sidelines and potentially saving Youngmin from entering a devil’s deal. “He already has a relationship. Leave them both alone.”

Youngmin sends him a since when do I have a relationship this fact is unknown to me to Jinyoung who steps bodily between the two of them, eyes hard on the guy and hand digging into Youngmin’s elbow with as much force as his glare.

“Once again, I don’t think you’ll maintain that joke of a relationship for long.”

“So sure that you’ll bet on it?”

Someone takes out a phone and there’s a camera flash. Youngmin can hear the rising whispers of ‘Holy shit he’s betting with the moody cocky assrag’ and ‘How much are you betting?’ over the sound of the guy cackling.

“You’re on, lover boy. I hope you lose miserably and find that people only like you for your face.”

“Piss off, fucker,” Jinyoung flicks the back of his hand at the guy’s face, shooing with the clear intention of I will punch you if you don’t hoppity bobbity the fuck outta my face punk.

He leaves, not even bothering with the classic sneer over his shoulder. It’s anticlimactic and frankly sad as Youngmin watches the guy elbows his way through the throng of people surrounding their little pissing match, too invested in a potential betting pool. Youngmin sees a few finance kids and business friends. They’re already plotting out Excel programs to accommodate the rates on their tablets and phones.

“You’re a dumb shit, hyung,” Jinyoung tells him to his face. “You better hope Donghyunnie is more accepting than I am because if that was me I’d bash your pretty lil’ face in.”

“I don’t think he’ll hate me,” Youngmin blinks, “much?”

“That’s one fake relationship I’m not diving into and one hell of a friendship ya gonna ruin if you don’t come clean with him straight off the bat.”

“Course I’m gonna tell him everything,” Youngmin bats JInyoung’s hand away, “who do you think I am?”

“A stupidly selfless guy who accepted a bet in front of thirty people under the guise of protecting his dignity but in reality just wants to keep an eye out on one Kim Donghyun lest the crazy fucker pulls a knife out on him?”

Jinyoung’s forearms hurt his fist when Youngmin punched him.

Chapter Text

“I still don’t understand how you, a human-hating,” Donghyun’s hand twitches in what people would normally describe as a gesture in the direction of Sihyun’s face, who is leafing through an anatomy textbook on the tracts in the human digestive system, “thing, is in the medicine program and becoming a doctor.”

“When you’re done criticising the system for the whatever how many times for choosing me, a capable person to reap money from cutting people open, please promptly tell me why you’re here or fuck off quietly,” Sihyun doesn’t look at him, scanning the words on the page.

Donghyun makes a dying animal sound. Soyeon told him in the past there’s nothing remotely animal-like or living-thing-like that comes from his throat when he emits this sound, but he’s in the biggest pickle jar ever since he broke his grandfather’s vase, so Donghyun is excused from any moral apprehension by dying through sound.

Sihyun rolls his eyes over the open page of the book.

“Can I borrow Long -?”

“Nope, out of the question.”

“It’s half a day, Sihyun-ah, please, help a friend out.”

“No one is borrowing Longguo because we have plans for that whole week,” Sihyun puts his book down and circles a uselessly long and manicured pointer finger, “and we are attending, as a unit. Find someone else. Sze Kai wouldn’t mind doppelgangering as your imaginary girlfriend.”

“How can she doppelganger as my girlfriend if I don’t have one? Females generally yell at me or pat me like some cute annoying duck stuck with frond leaves from the park,” at Sihyun’s contemplative face, Donghyun grits out a low ‘Don’t.’

Sihyun’s face tells him he’s definitely remembering that one description for future references. Like blackmailing materials.

“What do I do?” Donghyun stomps his feet and comes close to slamming into a shelf of Digestive System’s Glands and Tracts, Third Edition, because of how much he’s throwing himself onto the next available surface in his distress. “My mother will look upon my visage with her disappointing orbs, the light falling from her eyes-“

“Ey hyung!” Daehwi falls out from nowhere, throwing an arm over Donghyun’s shoulder. He flinches, knocking into Sihyun’s open book, who immediately slams it shut and grabs Donghyun’s wrist, narrowing his eyes at Daehwi.

Who? He glances from Donghyun to Daehwi.

“This is 1/4 of the inmates at the Brand New Boys’ Humble Abode, Lee Daehwi. What’s up, kid?” Donghyun doesn’t tell Sihyun to relinquish his grip, instead staying close to the dark-haired boy. Daehwi either is too used to too many people glaring at him or is immune to the Glare, beams enthusiastically at them like Sihyun isn’t outright contemplating where to hide his maimed body to the left.

“We’re doing movie night today and Woojin-hyung got a good horror film, so you’ll be okay with us making meaty foods in the kitchen, yes?”

Sometime Donghyun forgets he’s vegetarian and physically cringes at the smell of cooking or raw meat. He coos at Daehwi, melodrama forgotten as his soul softens at the considerate nature of his housemate, who he should talk to more because when he was swamped with exams he only talked with Daehwi and Woojin before he leave and when he come back at dinner.

“I’ll be there before you three, so you don’t have to worry about me being nauseous at the smell. Do you want me to pick up anything before?”

“Nah,” Daehwi waves it aside, “it’s all good. See you, hyung!”

Sihyun’s glare or whatever eye contact voodoo he’s doing in the back must’ve scared a much less man, but Daehwi bravely leans over, taps Donghyun’s shoulder and walks off, skipping.

“Can you not terrorise people?” Donghyun turns to his friend who leisurely pulls out a face mask, printed cat’s whiskers and nose crinkled by being too long inside whatever other atrocities that hibernate inside Sihyun’s pants’ pocket.

“Don’t dirty it, it’s Longguo’s,” Sihyun throws it to him and Donghyun manages to catch with his face.

“No ‘I’m sorry I frightened your cute impressionable baby housemate’?”

“If you keep talking it’ll be ‘I’m sorry I didn’t kick you in the face when we played soccer during primary school.’”

“I’ll have you know that what you’re thinking can constitute to murderous intent and within the law, that’s illegal.”

Sihyun makes a grab at him and swears excessively as Donghyun weaves out of his grab, cackling and throwing himself onto bookshelves.

Donghyun is throwing two more pillows onto the couch, Frisbee style, when the door slams shut. He isn’t going to lie – he’s got a weak heart, easily scared, will and can scream at anything. Given the situation, he has every right to.

He screams. It’s loud even behind the face mask. Bags of grocery drop to the ground, presumably hitting a foot because there’s a storm of curses going “Shit my foot!” and “Oh fuck my leg!” The wall takes the brunt of a slamming body and Park Woojin’s red hair is poking out from under his hoodie, shoulder bags falling down to his elbow, both hands clutching his socked foot.

“I’m so sorry,” Donghyun runs to him.

Woojin’s scowl doesn’t disappear, but it smooths into a sort of I-hate-you-for-screaming-but-this-is-how-I-look-normally face. As commiseration, he busies himself with salvaging the fallen bags, hugging them to his chest and occasionally apologising to Woojin as they pass each other moving from the hallway to the kitchen counter, food and drinks stacking on the counter.

“Do we eat this much?” Donghyun eyes the fifth popcorn box that sits in a wonky line with its other four identical siblings, proudly displaying the printed slabs of the words ‘ORGANIC VEGAN-FRIENDLY OPTION’ at the front.

“To be honest, I’m not very sure, but the possibility of this going stale and mouldy in our pantry is less than likely, so I thought ‘why not’ and ended up with five,” Woojin’s shrug can be heard from inside the pantry.

Donghyun is still eying the boxes.

“Plus they were on sale,” Woojin adds as an afterthought, to reassure him.

“How much?” Donghyun heaves the two bottles of vanilla Coke onto the counter.

“Like, you can buy five for the price of one.”

“I respect your decisions,” Donghyun tells him. The redhead snorts.

“Whoa it’s like a slumber party!” Daehwi’s shoes come off his feet in record speed – one minute he’s at the doorway, next minute he’s nosediving into the miscellaneous lumps of pillows and blankets, legs kicking. Youngmin closes the door behind him, mouth already nagging at the boy for being too careless with the door and his bag, struggling with a guitar case, two grocery bags, his own bag and Daehwi’s.

“Let me help,” Donghyun steps over, swiping the backpacks off Youngmin’s hands before he can react. The redhead struggles with the other plethora of bags on every available joint that can support bag straps and after five minutes of manoeuvring limbs, they resettle all the bags to their designated places. Daehwi opens boxes of takeaway meaty goodness and hops around the pizzas, stacking plates loudly on top of each other and opening all the boxes. Donghyun cringes and hovers near the living room, the oil affecting him more than the smell of cooked meat. Youngmin quickly resurfaces to relocate all potential food items to the living room with Daehwi skipping nearby like a cute helpful forest sprite. Every time the kid skips past he winks and blows a kiss to Donghyun. It’s adorably akin to having a pet and a small child in a favourable conglomeration of both.

“I’m gonna set up all the technological things. Do something about the popcorn,” Woojin tells Donghyun, waving a rented DVD case vaguely in the direction of the kitchen.

“Jinnie-hyung, that’s not where the,” Daehwi crashes into the couch from wherever he was as the TV splutters and screeches in broken robotic spurts. Woojin’s hand retreats reflexively, a snap of the elbow. “Thing is supposed to be,” Daehwi trails off.

“Nothing is broken. Make the popcorn happen,” Woojin waves them aside despite nearly setting the TV on fire mere seconds before. 

Scream if anything’s on fire, he mouths at Daehwi who shoves him two thumbs up.

“Tear open package, place in bowl and allow two minutes in the microwave,” Donghyun murmurs, the instructions on the back of the popcorn box blurring white and grey with him squinting in the dim kitchen light.

“Two minutes seem like it’s too short to roast popcorn,” a voice tells him.

“Is it roast? Or,” Donghyun looks up to see Youngmin hugging three packages of chips to his chest, “what’s the word? Cook?”

Youngmin gives him a wide I honestly have no clue buddy look, gesturing his head at the microwave. “Whatever it is, pop in in for three minutes and hope it doesn’t break the microwave.”

“I love your positive attitude,” Donghyun snorts and rips the package open carefully, kernels raining into the ceramic bowl with a heavy pitter patter akin to their collective falling grades. Neither one of them say anything as the microwave hums loudly in the background with periodical crackling sounds from the popcorn, Youngmin tapping on the foil packaging of the chips’ bags and Donghyun staring at the clock up on the wall, eyes blurring.

“I called you today and you didn’t pick up,” Youngmin tells him.

“Oh, uh, Woodam-hyung got my phone or something. I left it with him or Sze Kai and forgot to get it back. Sorry. Were you worried?”

The redhead squints at him, reading his face to see if it’s a half-ass lie or a bad truth. Deeming his face clear of guilt, Youngmin moves in closer, placing chip bags gently on the counter.

“About that anniversary date thing.”

“Oh it’s fine if you don’t want to come. If I’m desperate enough Sze Kai can always double as my cougar girlfriend,” Donghyun waves it aside, but Youngmin has grown to read his words as a silent signal of I’d rather not resort to that method please save me. He steps in closer. They’re about a bowl of popcorn apart.

“Okay,” Youngmin murmurs.

“Okay what? Okay you’re coming or okay take Sze Kai okay?” Donghyun’s arms flap in panic. “Please specify your words the lack of meanings make me nervous.”

“I think your mother is more than aware you’re an out and about homosexual, so I don’t know how much she would buy that lie,” Youngmin rolls his eyes and reaches for Donghyun’s volatile wrists, clasping them in his big palms. “Yes to I’ll come with you as a date.”

“Oh good,” Donghyun breathes, voice blurting out in a fast ramble. “Yes, nice. I can do that. We, I meant we, yes, it’s within possibility what am I saying.”

“On one condition.”

Donghyun stops breathing.

“Breathe, Hyunnie. It’s not sell your left kidney or anything drastic, but I’ll need your cooperation,” Youngmin brings Donghyun’s wrists to the front of his face, looking directly into Donghyun’s eyes.

“What, what do you need?”

“Pretend to date me.”

There is a moment where Daehwi’s shuffling and the microwave fantastical popcorn tap dance routine can be heard over Donghyun’s gaping mouth. Youngmin waits for ten counts before any proper freaking out can be delegated. Eight, seven…

“Your admirers will slaughter me,” Donghyun breaks out in a nervous whisper, “hyung, I – I can’t kill myself at 19, I’m too young, hyung, please spare me I’m your favourite dongsaeng…-“

“No one will bother you. Almost all of the school confessed to me and I turned them down,” Youngmin squeezes his wrists twice, a firm press of fingers each time. Donghyun doesn’t find that instantly destressing, but at least he’s not prone to smacking Youngmin on the face with the fruit bowl in an attempt to calm himself down.

“But still.”

“You’re always with me. We’re close enough. If we say we’re dating no one will care much. After the family dinner then we discuss where to go from there. I just wanted to let you know I’m not going to your dinner thing out of complete altruism. I have an ulterior motive. Please help a guy out.”

“Hyung, you’re doing the rapid fire gunshot battalion super heavy armament again,” Donghyun points out feebly, not looking at Youngmin.

“I cannot believe you just said all the synonyms of ‘weapon’ in a breath.”

“Okay,” Donghyun cuts in. Youngmin’s eyes search his face.

“Remember that you can pull out at any time kiddo. Don’t be too pressured. No forcing will be done,” Youngmin drops a soft kiss on Donghyun’s clasped hands at last.

“Same for you too.”

“Nah your mum makes great food. Shame not to visit again.”

The microwave beeps and Donghyun jumps, grabbing onto Donghyun’s arm.

“That scared me!” He points accusingly at the light emanating from inside the appliance. “So loud, this thing!”

“Don’t worry, hyung will protect you from all evil microwaves,” Youngmin pats him and grabs the bowl, never once taking Donghyun’s arm off.

“Bully,” Donghyun scrunches his face.

“I think you’re looking for the word ‘chivalry’."

“Can we break up already? I can’t be in this abusive relationship my self-esteem is already lower than my grades.”

“No can't do bub. Come on. I can see Woojinnie chewing on his shoelaces in desperate hunger.”

There is one thing that Im Youngmin is really good at and that is the art of being right whenever he says things. Either Woojin and Daehwi don’t care or don’t mind that Donghyun clinging onto Youngmin’s arm is a matter that should or will ever be disclosed over movie slumber night. Donghyun lets go of the redhead’s arm to latch onto Woojin, who settled aggressively further into the couch, tongue clicking against his snaggletooth.

“What movie is this?” He asks.

“Uh, The Grudge?” Daehwi turns to face him, eyes wide.

“Why is that in the form of a question?” Youngmin turns to them after pouring all the chips in bowls and throwing tissue papers all over their laps. “Don’t make a mess,” he looks at the three boys. Woojin received a longer stare.

“Sure, mum,” Woojin rolls his eyes.

“It’s in a question format because it was in Japanese with subtitles, but the subtitles aren’t very reliable and translate to something that’s not The Grudge, so now we’re not really sure what this is,” Daehwi munches popcorn and pizza slices, chewing happily. Woojin seems intent on discovering the identity of the movie, eyes following the woman moving into the house closely, squinting as she slides the door to the side.

“I mean it’s still horror right?” Donghyun flicks his eyes at the screen. Something jumps. Many things happen outside of the screen.

“HOLY MOTHERF-“ Woojin sits up but Youngmin shoved him back down, shoving pointing fingers at the banquet-sized plates portion on his lap.

“OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT!” Daehwi screeches, voice reaching at least an A6, arms flying everywhere.

Donghyun throws himself to the edge of the couch, wishing some device exists to erase the last twenty seconds from his eyeballs and brain. Youngmin, by sheer power and immunity against too realistic jump scares, removes all ceramic hazards from the blankets draped over their legs and plops down next to Donghyun, fussing over him.

Donghyun might’ve been made of many things, but pure regret is what he thrives on.

He snuggles into Youngmin’s side and whines, “Hyung save me,” like the damsel in distress that he obviously isn’t.

Youngmin grabs him by the shoulder and tucks his head into his own side, face away from the TV screen, where more crunching sounds are heard.

“It’s just CGI HOLY SH-“ Daehwi sobs and nearly elbows Woojin on the face when he throws the blanket, “WOOJINNIE HYUNG I’M SUING YOU!”

“We need to have a talk about,” Youngmin pulls Donghyun even closer to his body, nose scrunching at the girl with blue-veined eyes and hair with mop-like quality.

“I’M SO SORRY I REALLY AM!” Woojin cuts in, screaming at the same pitch Daehwi is.

“Your movie choices,” Youngmin sighs and squeezes Donghyun as he whines into his jumper.

“Save me too, hyung,” Daehwi turns to Woojin, clutching the blanket desperately with his long fingernails, “it’s your fault.”

“No bitch, do that shit with your boyfriend the small breadface fucker I only signed up to be your childhood friend,” the boy scoffs. Daehwi’s mumbles something unsavoury under the blanket, kicking Woojin presumably.

“OH MY JESUS LORD OF THE LAMBS!” Someone screams and Woojin ends up hugging Daehwi, both of them watching the screen in morbid and terrified rapture as blood spurts everywhere.

“I want new housemates,” Donghyun tells him.

“Me too kid, me too.”

When Woodam empties his bag at the end of the day, Donghyun’s phone falls out. He looks at it for about three seconds and moves to charge the most likely dead phone, his house full of chargers from every one of his friend constantly leaving phones with him.

The minute the screen comes back to life, the phone buzzes with the fervour of someone possessed or a speaker box on high frequency with trap beats or whatever the atrocity that Soyeon listens to. Eying the device for a solid second, Woodam picks it up and types in Donghyun’s password, eyebrows pinched at the call number.

“Since when does Donghyunnie know Jinyoungie?”

“Gave it to him this year,” someone answers for him. Woodam startles, phone nearly slipping out of his hand and him diving after it. He turns around, looking behind him to see Woo Jinyoung stepping into his house, phone clutched to his chest.

“Please tell me you didn’t pick my house’s lock,” he tells the pink-haired boy.

“I need to tell you something and we’re both going to be calm throughout my announcement, alright?” Jinyoung kicks his shoes off and approaches him, eyes wide like he’s afraid Woodam might unleash supersonic dolphin screeching his direction. They stop about three footsteps apart, Jinyoung’s hands hover near Woodam’s arms but not really touching him, eyes wide and socked feet ready to bolt if deemed necessary.

“Did you know that Donghyunnie needs a date home for his mother’s anniversary thing?” Woodam examines the device, now transferred to his hand, turning it inside his palm.

Jinyoung nods.

“Did you know that he has some sort of lover’s spat with Youngminnie that he came to us for help?”

“They were…going out right?” Jinyoung tried, he really did.

“That’s what we thought too, but apparently nothing’s ever defined,” Woodam’s face melts into a distressed kitten after an unexpected shower look. Jinyoung prepares his eulogy and will.

“I don’t know how to say this but Youngmin-hyung had a bet with a guy.”

“This tells me nothing about the lover’s spat issue they’re going through. Youngmin-hyung called him twenty times. Hyunnie’s own mother only called him five times.”

“The guy might’ve told hyung to go date someone because he’s incapable of being in a relationship?”

Woodam nearly drops the phone.

“He what?”

“Uh he said he’s considering Donghyunnie?”

“That’s not any better!”

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Jinyoung catches Woodam’s arms, partly for Confrontational Cliché Scenes in All Korean Drama effect, but also to prevent Woodam from hitting him. “If it’s any consolation, I’ll punch him if it gets out of hand. I will even forfeit the bet if Donghyunnie will be upset over it.”

In all honesty Jinyoung intended Woodam to not be upset, but he cares just as much for Donghyun too, annoyingly loud as he is.

“No, no, I’ll – talk to him,” Woodam shakes his head, bangs falling inside his glasses, “and then we’ll see.”

“Okay but,” Jinyoung pulls the brunette into a hug, “how can you break something if there was nothing to break?”

Chapter Text

The couch is not a comfortable place to drop dead to after a day. Donghyun’s neck is possibly dislocated. Woojin’s leg is up his ribs.

Youngmin has left for his run, presumably. In his place there’s a big-ass Pikachu soft toy that Donghyun is snuggling up against. He punches it a bit, affectionately, and nuzzles into the soft material, trying to find the motivation to get up.

Woojin shifts and swings his leg at his chin. He blinks as the pain sets in, stars flying behind his lids. Pain is a great motivation to get up as any.

Donghyun ducks under the leg and pulls his own from under the blanket, stumbling and tripping his way to the kitchen, where there’s juice and food readied by Youngmin. A phone sits in between the apples on the fruit bowl, with a note written in one of Daehwi’s gold glitter gel pens.

Woodam came to give this back. He charged it for you. Apparently your mum tried to call so ring her back to tell her you’re not dead. This is spinach with milk and avocado. Woodam also baked these vegetable pastries this morning so eat them while they’re hot. I’m taking you to this place for food after your Communications class don’t go anywhere.

Love, Minnie hyung

“Ew,” Donghyun grins into his fist, eyes fluttering open and shut due to the early morning. He drags the back of one hand across his face and fumbles with his phone, grabbing two mangoes and an apple before he can grasp the device in his grip. Blinking at the time, 7:36, he stabs the screen with clumsy and heavy fingers, his mother’s photo and contact the last time he visited bright on the screen.

“What happened to your phone yesterday young man?” She asks as soon as she picks up.

“I forgot it and Woodam-hyung picked it up for me. I’m sorry. I’m alive. I might have good news,” he apologises. His mother may not tolerate incompetence but dishonesty she absolutely hates.

Mrs Kim hums, a mix between it better be good and go on.

“I have a date? It’s Youngmin hyung. He said he’ll be more than okay with accompanying me.”

“Youngmin-ssi?”

“Tall, has red hair, really awkward. Oh god are you okay with the red hair I can dye it back for him before we go –“

“No, no,” she clicks her tongue, “that young man is fine. I’m glad you’re abiding by your father and my wishes.”

She also mutters something that sounds like Fucking finally but it’s a breath of air and he’s too sleepy to decipher what his mother is saying under her breath.

“Anything for you, mother.”

“Be good to him. Be on time. Keep your damn phone on you. Call me tomorrow.”

“Okay love you mum.”

“I love you too, jagiya.”

“You lucky motherfucker,” Hyeongseob peeps outside and digs a fist into Donghyun’s shoulder.

“Why? What?”

“Im Youngmin,” Hyeongseob’s mouth keeps falling open further and further. At some point his jaw is going to fall off and Woojin will flay Donghyun alive if he accidentally caused his boyfriend’s death. Or was there to witness it.

“Language. You’re like four,” Donghyun throws books inside his bag and bows as he skids outside, folders and scarves everywhere all over his wrists and elbows. Youngmin catches him before he flies off into oblivion the wall on the other side of the hallway and settles Donghyun on his feet, gripping his non-existent biceps.

You have biceps. They’re natural muscles. They’re just not as defined for people who don’t work out, the medical Sihyun demon informs him.

Shut up Sihyun it’s my body I can call it what I want, Donghyun argues back, innerly, and summons on his best I am Zen face. Youngmin loosens his bag straps, reaching to grab Donghyun’s hand and jiggles it a bit, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

“Hungry?”

“My stomach is going to commit inverse seppuku,” Donghyun tells him, which is an interesting way of saying ‘I’m hungry’. Youngmin doesn’t even react, squeezing his hand twice and leads him gently out of the building, onto the bus stop. Donghyun’s bag gets taken out of his grip at some point, hanging weirdly over Youngmin’s bag. He has moved to cling onto Youngmin’s elbow, the subtle height difference enhancing the accessibility and sheer convenience of hanging off the redhead’s elbow like an Italian dame possible, and Donghyun excessively tosses his wind-blown hair to passing pedestrians who don’t even look at his Pantene shampoo ad hair fluttering in the wind.

Rude.

“It’ll take around ten minutes to get there,” Youngmin murmurs, eyes squinting to see the timetable, “it’s coming in five minutes so y’know, won’t be much of a wait.”

“You make it sound like waiting with me is the last thing you’ll rather do.”

Youngmin gives him a look that sparks a flurry of punches and kicks from Donghyun. “I was kidding! Stop punching me!” Youngmin cackles as Donghyun swings his fists everywhere, onto stomach and shoulder and hips, which hurt a damn lot. He scuffs his shoes trying to kick the older boy on the knee, tripping. Before he can even tell that he’s falling slowly through the air, Youngmin pulls him back on the pavement with a hand over his shoulder, stuffing Donghyun’s face into his upper arm, the sleeve smacking onto his nostril. Donghyun flaps around like a fish held by the tail for a bit, Youngmin’s hand still iron-vice around him, which is strangely securing, a bit flattering to be held firmly like he’s afraid Donghyun will meet the pavement face-first if he lets go and a bit overwhelming because what cologne does he use that’s so nice-

“What cologne do you spray on yourself?” Donghyun sniffs in a noseful. “This shit is like an entire buffet in scent form.”

“One of the Lynx ones? Seongri-hyung gave me one for my birthday and I’ve been using it without remembering the labels,” Youngmin squeezes his arm. “Thanks, you fucking weirdo.”

“My words are sincere and I am of a higher essence than a mere ‘fucking weirdo’, thank you very much,” Donghyun sneaks another sniff in, the cologne making his head dizzy.

“Bus is here. I’m going on it first,” Youngmin disentangles their limbs, Donghyun whining at the loss of warmth despite it being a warm day. He chases after the redhead, threading their fingers together, steps quickly following after Youngmin who walks at a significantly slower pace than his usual manic powerwalk, choosing to pity Donghyun’s turtle pace.

The driver spares them one bored look and slams the door shut after Donghyun. They seat themselves in the back, Youngmin occasionally pinching and poking Donghyun who dodges here and there in stuttered glee, face red at trying to hold in his laughter. When Youngmin pulls him into the restaurant, the one they always go to every Tuesday and Thursday because of mutual breaks in between classes, the waitress, Ariyoshi Risa, winking at them and Youngmin flashes one of his I’m Only 20 smiles as they walk in.

“Cute,” Risa winks as she passes by, as Donghyun balls up the napkin and throws it at Youngmin’s face, hitting him on the forehead.

“Uh huh,” he nods, swerving to the left. “Hyung, don’t waste food!”

Youngmin throws a dill leaf at the front of his shirt.

“No I’m paying.”

"You paid last time, let me pay.”

“I’m the hyung. It’s the socially acceptable arbitrary rule that I pay.”

“Seriously, I don’t care. Move before I step on you, old man. My wallet is full, my generosity is overflowing. Let me pay for our damn lunch.”

Risa swipes Donghyun’s card so fast he’s not even sure if she accepted their payment at all or just gave them a free meal. Youngmin begins to look close to when Woojin nearly broke the rice cooker in their dorm for one of his engineering projects, disappointed but not surprised. Donghyun yells a quick ‘See you!’ to Risa and pulls Youngmin outside, clinging onto the redhead whose sulking session lasts as long as a goldfish’s memory, coming to a stop as Donghyun unleashes the cringey aegyo™ on him.

A Skype call. What seems to be Donghyun’s grainy, pixelated skull moves. What lacks for visual doesn’t lack for sound quality. All participants of the call are subjected to the one line from Donghyun.

It goes something like this.

“Remember when I had that little crisis today?” Donghyun asks.

“Yes, dear,” Sze Kai answers like the angel she is.

“It’s been, like, six hours,” Soyeon states, flabbergasted. At least, that’s what the tone of her voice seems to portray. Pixels cannot really encompass the entirety of the human emotional spectrum.

“Doesn’t your life ever like, clear itself of drama?” Sihyun scoffs.

“You are being rude and it’s affecting my delicate mental state,” Donghyun quips back. Before Sihyun’s ‘good riddance’ makes an appearance, Woodam pacifies them all, whose video quality is surprisingly decent. There are no pixels and his face is distinct. The quality is so good Donghyun can see the titles of his books behind him hidden in the dark.

“Why is your camera so good what the fuck?” Soyeon voices.

“Language,” Sze Kai sighs.

“I don’t know, it just turns up nicely,” Woodam shrugs.

“He’s too pure for pixels that’s why he’s showing up wholly,” Longguo murmurs, slumped against Sihyun’s shoulder.

“Was that a pun?” Sze Kai breathes out, disbelieved, astonished, shocked, flabbergasted – more synonyms. There are some movements on Sihyun’s cam and a muffled ‘He shrugged’ comes on. “Unbelievable,” Sze Kai continues.

“Back to me, thanks,” Donghyun intercepts before Soyeon throws a fit about how good-looking people always get the nice things in life.

“This bitch, I swear to god,” Soyeon tosses in for the sake of commenting.

“I asked Youngmin-hyung, we’re going together and I’m set for the anniversary,” he powers through, giving it five seconds for his friends to digest his words.

“Your parents already met him, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shock,” Sze Kai hums.

“That’s great dear! Have you thought about a present for your family when you two visit?” Woodam grins, claps his hands together and scrunch his eyes in a smile at the camera. He has to blink several times to adjust his eyes to the halo behind the brunette’s head.

“Wine? I don’t know, we’re picking something up Thursday then he’s dropping me off to see Sze Kai’s tennis match. Someone pick me up from the canteen because that’s as far as he goes.”

“Busy,” Longguo helpfully supplies.

“With what?” Sze Kai asks.

“Sihyun has a dinner thing. We’ll come by the second half,” he elaborates further, Sihyun stepping away to get something offscreen.

“I’ll be able to but you might have to wait about twenty minutes because Jinyoungie finishes class late,” he informs Donghyun, “is that alright with you?”

“It should be fine, hyung. Wait for Jinyoung-hyung. I’ll be good.”

“Fucking domestic couple,” Soyeon purses her lips. Woodam gives up on scolding her. “I’ll pick your sad loser ass up. I’m waiting for Eunbean in the same place.”

“And you call me whipped, Jeon.”

“I know your bank details, Kim, don’t go there. I can empty it in a click of a mouse.”

“Terrifying,” Longguo heartlessly cheers.

“Please don’t do that,” Sze Kai pleads, with no sincerity in her voice.

“Go to sleep, please, all of you. And I mean sleep properly. Looking at you Soyeonie,” Woodam turns off his light and glares at them until all cameras are off. Donghyun wishes him a goodnight, turns everything off and smothers himself under his blankets, blinking in the dark.

When Youngmin returns to their shared room, he’s pushing the blankets further up on Donghyun’s chin. A verse begins to materialise in his mind but he shakes it off, climbing into his own bed.

Soyeon is by the cafeteria, hoisting Sze Kai’s tennis racket carrier bag on her shoulder, bandanna today bright orange on her freshly-dyed blonde hair. She cringes back when she sees them approaching, Donghyun by now becoming an extension of Youngmin’s body, winding around his arms, shoulder and the left side of his body.

“You’re disgusting and your whipped ass better stop him before I neck slice him past his parents’ anniversary dinner,” Soyeon rips them apart, bag whacking onto Donghyun’s side.

“No~” he cries and twitches his fingers in grabbing motions at Youngmin who rolls his eyes, leans down to drop a kiss to his left temple and walks off, waving at them as he retreats. The wine bag stays resolutely on his shoulder.

“Still gross,” Soyeon sneers at him.

“Shut the fuck up you’re waiting for Eunbean, you whipped motherfucker, don’t start with me.”

Soyeon kicks him.

Chapter Text

It’s not that Donghyun is oblivious in most aspects of life, but he is indeed blind to obvious signs. Like affection, things that go in his favour, his own ability and achievements.

But god damn is he aware of whatever this bet-anniversary-fake-date business is. Youngmin is everywhere all at once (although Sze Kai helpfully pointed out that nothing is out of the ordinary, except that Youngmin is free of admirers). They’ve been on cute cringey couple dates and getting discounted meals. They walk each other to classes, like usual. Youngmin makes him breakfast, texts him his class schedule and life schedule. He knows his coffee orders and his allergies and his dietary requirements. They do homework together, on time, in the library. Either Donghyun didn’t see him before the askance of being his fake date or he just didn’t appreciate Youngmin, a Literal Angel, before he had the Revelation™. It’s like 2 days before the anniversary. It’s the worst timing any revelations can have.

“God, I’m a horrible bean,” he stares at the spot in the corner of Woodam’s room, “I’m just an ungrateful brat. I don’t deserve Youngmin-hyung.”

Longguo gives him a look that’s so Sihyun-like he has to blink twice to register that it’s the boyfriend, not Sihyun.

“Can I punch him? Like, can I?” Soyeon points the cap of a Doraemon pen at his face.

“No, you’ll suffer his boyfriend’s wrath,” Woodam points out.

“I can probably fight him too, but he has weight and height over me. Eunbean wants to watch a movie today. I can’t look bad,” Soyeon waves it aside.

Donghyun can’t hear them, because he’s having another Revelation.

“Guys, guys,” he slaps the mattress and Soyeon purses her lips, “there are no more admirers.”

“Oh yeah you’re right,” Woodam slams a fist to his open palm, “he’s people-free nowadays. I saw him crossed the street without hordes of fangirls flocking to him.”

“Donghyunnie cries when he’s insecure,” Longguo mumbles ever so helpfully. “Him crying is the human equivalent of a weeping puppy. People feel bad when they see a weeping puppy. Hence, they don’t make him cry. They’re rabid, but they have a shred of conscience in those cold hearts of theirs.”

“Let’s be real here the only people who ever come near Youngmin-ssi are the desperate, the dared or the curious,” Woodam points out.

Longguo makes a noise that sounds like ‘you’re right’.

“Plus I’ll be ready to fight them if they ever try to steal ya man,” Soyeon flicks him a thumbs up.

“No,” Woodam looks at her and Soyeon uncaps her pen, rolling up her sleeves, “we’ll all fight them.”  

“Yo, dude, you’re so hardcore,” she deflates, grinning gummily at him. “I cannot believe I’m saying this, but wow, if I wasn’t gay I’d be all over you.”

Woodam looks like he’d rather not consider the prospect of that ever occurring in his lifetime or his children’s lifetime. Longguo chokes on a snort. Donghyun shoves an entire fist into his mouth to stop his fit of giggles from erupting.

“Fucking rude,” Soyeon retaliates by throwing pens at them.

“Sihyun knows where to permanently break people and Sze Kai can always bash people over the head with her tennis spike,” Longguo’s voice worms its way into Soyeon’s chant of Woodam’s name, rising at frequencies of cult’s sacrificial ceremonies before lighting the fire.

“Okay honestly, shut up, all of you,” he screams at them, “I’m picking hyung up from class.”

“Weak!” Soyeon throws a jacket at the back of his head.

“Wear sunscreen!”

“Get me ramen!”

Donghyun doesn’t forget to yell a ‘GO DIE!’ before he closes the door.

“Hyung!” He nearly body-slams into Youngmin, who stumbles and nearly falls into the door. Donghyun ends up steadying the boy, both of them grabbing each other. “You look like death.”

“I will fight you right here right now if you don’t have anything productive to say,” Youngmin threatens him, with no violence behind his words.

“Let’s go,” Donghyun tells him, which roughly translates to I care for you, with my fists, because you’re dumb and I’m worried enough to punch you.

“Adorable,” Siyeon giggles and filters by, sweet floral perfume wafting up his nose. Donghyun opens his mouth to protest, but Siyeon is long gone, long black hair blending into five billion other students with long black hair. Youngmin and Donghyun are still at the door obstructing the way of people who have more things to do than stay there to watch their bickering.

“I’m buying you coffee and throwing you under house arrest,” he drags the boy away, hand over his wrist.

“Can we get coffee first?”

He doesn’t turn his head but slows down his I-have-a-country-to-pillage-and-plunder and nudges the redhead by the hips. Youngmin’s bangs flop onto his eyes, the bags under his eyes are dark purple, staining the skin a spoiled yoghurt shade.

 “What’s with your face?”

“Stuck for music,” Youngmin mumbles, weakly slamming into the café’s glass door. Donghyun reaches behind him to push the door open, both of them stumbling inside.

“That’s it?” Youngmin grunts something under his breath, eyes fluttering more close than open. “Wait a bit near that table next to the window. I’ll come back soon.”

He passes his palm across Youngmin’s hair briefly, grazing his head for a split second and turning to stand in the queue. Tapping his foot in irregular rhythm on the floor, with his hands shoved into pockets, he’s constantly looking at Youngmin who slumps on the table with the sun spilling over his back and hair, flimsy strands sticking up from him waking up late this morning without Donghyun there to wake him up. It’s weak, his little heart, mourning at the exhaustion Youngmin carries in his back and skin, wanting nothing more to wrap the boy in twenty blankets, throw him in a dark room and lock him in there until he catches up on all the sleep he lost for the past four months.

“Here you go,” Donghyun gingerly places a cup on the table. Youngmin however, is fast asleep, arms sprawled over the table.

“I’ll let you nap,” his lips do that thing where it twitches up on the right side of his face and he drapes himself over the back of Youngmin’s neck, closing his eyes.

“I cannot believe you just let me sleep,” Youngmin tells him later, face stuffed under the hood of his parka, “on a coffee table.”

He makes coffee table sounds like snake pit. Donghyun dutifully tunes him out, looping a hand through the crook of his elbow with a firm arm.

“Don’t ignore me,” he whines.

“You needed the nap,” he rolls his eyes.

“No I don’t. I need to finish my assignment.”

Donghyun doesn’t need to turn his head to hear the pout. He smothers his face into Youngmin’s forearm, gripping the boy’s elbow and stays there, the two of them hidden by the line of trees, momentarily.

“Don’t worry me. You’re the worrier in this relationship,” he crushes the sniffle and something like I care about you too much to see you like this further down his throat, rubbing his nose into the inside of Youngmin’s arm.

The redhead stills and grabs his face, lifting his face up, aligning their eyes. The insipid eyes that were so downcast widen in their panic of ever worrying Donghyun and cracked lips move without speaking, open and close, open and close.

“I’m sorry, jagiya,” he breathes out, touching their foreheads together, “I’ll take care of myself more.”

“You better,” maybe Donghyun is sniffling now, wrinkling his nose. Maybe Youngmin can hear it, thumbs rubbing over his jaw, under his chin, over his cheeks. “Otherwise I’ll fight you when you die.”

“Okay, jagiya, okay.”

Kim Seongri, 22, dresses well, likes gardening, speaks and understands fluent Gibberish, does yoga aggressively due to the sheer amount of stress he undergoes daily in managing his children. He’s no genius, but he can sense danger emitting off in waves in the form of humans. Especially children. Especially children under his care.

Im Youngmin today seems to be the top contender for the danger tag, stalking over with Kim Donghyun, coffee cup dented from the sheer force of his stress. Donghyun drapes Youngmin in a one-armed hug, squeezing and waves goodbye to Seongri and Euiwoong as he runs off to the medicine building.

“If this is because you haven’t yet finished that project, I’ve hit my weekly quota. Try next week,” Seongri puts up a patient palm to Youngmin opening his mouth, who shuts it with a click and scowling at him.

“Didn’t Donghyun-ssi take care of your emotional output before you guys got your daily dose of caffeine?” Lee Euiwoong, 19, cute but has abs, once broke Woo Jinyoung’s nose doing a handstand, wears black because he’s lazy to wash the stains, waves a vague hand to the direction Donghyun left.

“Yes he did, but I have a much bigger issue,” Youngmin breathes, “yah,” he looks at a snickering Euiwoong, “be nice.”

“How big are we talking?” Seongri leans over to take Youngmin’s bag. “Like family emergency bad or I burnt a stove bad?”

“Can we wait till Jinyoung hyung get here? His swearing contributes greatly to society,” Euiwoong pushes the library door open and skips in, twirling like ‘the pretty snowflake’ that he is.

He’s cute, so no one ever corrected the kid.

“You, what’s with your face?” Seongri sits down, pulling a chair out for Euiwoong.

"I had like four hours of sleep for the past fortnight.”

Euiwoong laughs so hard the legs of his chair almost topple backwards and drop his entire weight onto the floor. Youngmin seizes the back of the chair, pushing the kid back while scowling at Seongri staring into thin air in despair.

“I need a holiday, or a dose of rat’s poison,” Seongri puts the back of his hand onto his forehead, letting out a long breath.

“Don’t be sad, hyung, we love you even though we’re problematic,” Euiwoong turns around and beams at him, true Angel Child style. Seongri smothers his hand against his nose and eyes, dropping heavily onto the chair Youngmin discreetly pulled out for him.

“What’s your problem?” He asks Youngmin, because he knows full well there’s no work to be done until Jinyoung, actual disciplined scholar, shows up from wherever he’s detained at. Don’t look at Seongri for studious productivity – he hasn’t even started his dissertation, due in a week.

“Donghyunnie asked me to come home with him to his parents’ anniversary dinner.”

“This is a problem because…?”

“I feel like last time I made a shit impression on his parents and they wouldn’t want me there? Like there are plenty of other people he can ask to come home with, but he asked me, so it’s a really fucking big burden what if I embarrass him in front of his parents I’d be a really shitty friend hyung…”

“First of all,” Seongri holds a hand up, “if they didn’t kick you out of their household last time I see no reason for them doing so this time around.”

Off to the side he hears the faintest ‘You can follow his gunfire speech?’ Seongri makes a mental note to pinch Euiwoong when Youngmin turn his head.

“Yeah but…”

“No they won’t. You told me that they’re nice, but they’re still Korean and intolerable of stupid boys loitering around in their household. Either suck it up or bullshit your way through this. He’s a nice kid. Don’t make him sad.”

When Youngmin sits with his head hanging low and contemplating, Euiwoong flicks his eyes to Donghyun and up at Seongri.

Why’s he freaking out about meeting the parents if he already met them?

Seongri rolls his eyes. Typical self-doubting, emotionally regurgitated Youngmin. Ignore him.

Before either one of them can verbalise their less than savoury opinions, a pink head drops onto Euiwoong’s shoulder.

“Why does he look dead?” Jinyoung jerks an eyebrow at Youngmin.

Euiwoong quickly fills in all the missing gossip in the span of ten seconds.

“Dinner date. Meeting fam. Hyunnie asked Minnie-hyung. Freaking out over nothing.”

In another world, maybe that’s a great feat, contextualising information to the bare essentials. But in this world, that’s an unnecessary hassle. Jinyoung goes still, pinching his forehead.

“You need to sort this out fast. It’s not something to mope over,” Jinyoung tells the mop of red hair.

“Or something to lose sleep over,” Euiwoong nods sagely.

“You guys are shitty friends,” Youngmin grumbles back.

Jinyoung doesn’t need to look twice to know the asshole boyfriend came to harass Youngmin again. But by some sacred public laws, he hasn’t touched or interfered with what appears is smooth sailing of the fake bet relationship. Jinyoung is wary of everything all at once, watching out for Youngmin whenever he can, but the idiot seems to just leave them, maybe because he week isn’t over yet, maybe because the weakass bitch only has a loud mouth and nothing else going for him, maybe he’s strangely honouring his promise to the bet. Who knows.

It bugs him that Youngmin and Donghyun aren’t dating for real yet. Like. How. How does one go on being ‘just bros’ after all the unnecessary touching? All the disgusting domesticity (Daehwi always seems to gravitate towards him in complaint)? All the cute post-it notes?

The week isn’t over yet. Maybe there’s more to it.

“Or maybe you’re just a stupid ass who needs who get his shit together and come clean out to Donghyunnie,” he shoves a palm onto the back of Youngmin’s head.

Chapter Text

It is the day.

D-Day. Doomsday. Judgement Day. The Day of The Feast. Whatever.

Youngmin is Calm. He is Zen. He is surrounded by Zen. He is oozing with Zen.

“You’re shaking,” Woojin notes helpfully, crunching on a stick of celery.

Youngmin promptly throws a balled-up sock at his direction. Woojin tilts his head to one side, briefly, pursing his upper lip only in mild irritation at what he’s muttering as ‘stupid behaviour’.

“Is that my shirt?” Daehwi pops his head out from the kitchen, frowning. He gives Youngmin a once-over, from his washed and combed hair to his polished shoes and his dad’s belt. “Doesn’t matter. You look good, hyungie!”

Woojin makes a noise of affirmation through a mouth of celery.

“That’s disgusting,” Daehwi wrinkles his nose. Woojin spits out bits of celery his way and Daehwi pulls away, even from a room away, drawing his jumper closer to himself, nose scrunching into a deeply etched expression of utter disgust and revulsion.

“Okay, I’m okay, I’ll just,” Youngmin tries to physically shrug all of his anxieties, worries and paranoia away, “go do the thing.”

Donghyun chooses that moment to run into the doorknob and nearly falls face first into the carpet behind their front door, hoisting himself up with the sheer force of Sihyun’s one-armed grip on his collar.

“Be fucking careful you stupid ditz,” the dark-haired boy grumbles, pulling the blonde up.

“I’m okay!” Donghyun springs up, hands waving everywhere. He lifts his head and they make immediate eye contact. He’s smiling before he can even register why, but Donghyun is also beaming, shoving him multiple thumbs ups, eyes squished into the most adorable eye smiles Youngmin ever witnessed. He’s maybe a bit biased. Donghyun’s are the only eye smiles he sees.

Woojin pulls a face.

“Let’s go before we’re late. My aunt is over with her kid,” Donghyun extends a hand and Youngmin finds himself crossing an entire room to take that hand. He’s not blinking rapidly, but he has to crush the urge to, when he’s staring into Donghyun’s beam and Sihyun’s jeers behind them.

“Don’t eat too much,” Daehwi calls out, giggling a little to a Bae Jinyoung hidden in the kitchen. Youngmin doesn’t know when or how that happen, but he’s fucking impressed Daehwi is on that level of sneaking boys into their dorm unnoticed. Giving Jinyoung a look, nodding at Sihyun and waving at his baby housemates, he lets himself be manhandled into his own car, seated and seat-belted.

“Is this necessary?” He looks at Donghyun who is fussing over the clasps on his on belt, jabbing the belt rather aggressively with the end that goes in.

“This is the only security you’re gonna get before my fam demolish you,” the now brunette spares him a flick of pitiful puppy-eyed look, stares down and finally shoves the clasp into its designation.

“Should I write a eulogy then?” Youngmin jokes while reversing out of their driveway.

“Probably, but let’s be real, I’ll get everything as your pseudo-boyfriend, potential spouse and fake best friend.”

Youngmin snorts and shifts gear. Donghyun leans into the seat, sunlight washing over his face. He does that cliché chick flick move where he’s reaching over to touch the back of Donghyun’s hand, the other one steering the wheel slightly.

Donghyun bathing in golden light is something he wants to document and immortalise in a jar. It makes his fingers want to write out rhymes that stem from under his ribs.

“You, how good are you at table tennis?” The kid points a bottle of what looks like really expensive wine at his face. Youngmin is more worried about the possibilities of the bottle dropping onto laminated floor and leaking into the basement than processing what is being asked of him.

“Uh,” he stumbles for an answer, “pro-probably?”

The kid nods like that’s as good as a ‘yes’, running back inside the kitchen. Donghyun’s aunt flitters back and forth with last-minute gifts, ordering the three boys here and there, Donghyun lifting chairs and Youngmin at the kitchen mixing flour, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, Power Rangers’ apron around his middle.

“Cute,” Donghyun giggled when he looped the strings over his head. Youngmin retaliated by throwing his jacket at the boy.

“Auntie?” Youngmin calls for the woman. “I’m not sure if this is how it works.”

“Oh, it is, dear,” someone tells him. Youngmin prides himself for not knocking the bowl over or bashing the sudden intruder over the head. Donghyun’s mum grins at him from the fridge, nodding at the cake mix. “That should be right.”

“Thank you,” he bows briefly before pouring the mix into a pan and putting everything into the oven. The silence is oddly domestic. He’s not meeting her eyes, but he can tell she’s looking at him. In the guise of dusting flour in his apron, he flattens his palms on the material, watching as gusts of dust pick up and settle on the fabric. The woman waits patiently.

“Say if, I hypothetically, write a song about Donghyunnie,” he pauses, lifts his head and meets her eyes, “would you be very bothered by it?”

“It’s not my place to grant you permission, but I approve of the gesture. It’s sweet. Do you know what will be in the song?”

“This is going too well for me to not be suspicious,” he tells her, “but probably something gross.”

She throws back her head and laughs. It’s refreshing. The air was getting stuffy.

“Wait until my darling gets here. We’ll properly welcome you this time around.”

When she turns to leave, she knocks on the wall. Youngmin lifts his head up.

“Thank you,” Mrs Kim smiles.

“If your friends are getting 90s you can at least scrape 75s,” Kim Eunsoo tells his son. Youngmin almost bites the chopsticks from breaking into sudden laughter, rice grains lodged in uncomfortable places somewhere in the back of his throat.

Donghyun looks like his dad insulted his impressive collection of Charlie Chaplin films.

“I’m offended that you think I care enough for ethics beyond a credit earning scheme to scrape 75s by. My low 70s average is asking for too much already.”

“Hyunnie-yah, you told me that last time about design too but it’s your minor,” he reminds the boy.

The cousin maybe doesn’t understand all the adult words, but he understands fully when someone is being roasted. And Donghyun is Premium Roast Beef right here right now. His dad is roaring with laughter, chopsticks slamming onto the table while his mother tries her best to meditate between a sympathetic and amused expression, biting her lip to not let the giggles emerge.

His aunt is outright pointing and laughing at him, her pearl necklace jingles.

“This family, all snakes. You too, hyung. I cannot believe you would snitch on me like this,” Donghyun sniffs and picks up his chopsticks, stealing Youngmin’s portion of broccoli from his plate. He doesn’t even blink, already moving onto the meats.

He doesn’t miss the nudge exchange that transpires between Donghyun’s parents.

“I thought it was a joke,” Youngmin looks from the bat to the ping pong table to the cousin.

“I thought your life was a joke too but here you are, hyungie,” Donghyun screams at him, hiding as Youngmin hurls a ping pong ball at high velocity with his pitcher’s arm at the boy, screeching as the trajectory comes too whizzingly close to his ear.

“Good aim,” Mr Kim tells him.

“He nearly took my ear off,” his son wails, hiding behind his aunt, “with a ping pong ball.

His mum shrugs like it could’ve been worse. His aunt peels him off her and shoos him away, collapsing onto the couch. Youngmin is parts fearful parts gleeful at Donghyun’s misery, wilted like a cabbage leaf. The cousin challenges Donghyun to a ‘man-to-man’ match, brandishing his bat at Donghyun’s chest level.

The brunette scrunches his nose and shoves his bat at Youngmin who doesn’t expect to have this burden. He grips the bat and stares at Donghyun, asking with his eyes. Why am I holding a bat and why are you not?

“Hyungie will fight in my honour, for my honour,” his fake-boyfriend and now fake best friend declares.

“I never agreed,” Youngmin replies just as quickly.

“You accepted the bat. That was the gauntlet. Fight on, little one.”

“If Dowoonie destroys your dignity, I will remember your lemon cake forever, which by the way, well done. I’ll commit the recipe to memory,” Donghyun’s aunt reassures him.

“He’s a kid,” Youngmin points with his bat. In his head the words I’m much more memorable than my cooking flash bright neon red. “It’ll be so insulting if I lose!”

“They all say that,” Mr Kim nods sagely, sipping on the wine that Youngmin gifted them, smacking his lips together in a drawl, “but they all end up losing.”

“Sell my music to the highest bidder,” he turns to Donghyun who fervently executes a cheer routine for his sake. “Okay, kid, I’m good, destroy me.”

The kid is really good. He should go to the Olympics or whatever youth association that trains genius athletes before they turn twelve and stale.

Youngmin apparently put up a good fight. He lost by two points the first round, won the second and lost by a point in the last. It’s the closest anyone came into contact with Dowoon’s impenetrably spotless table tennis winning streaks. Youngmin, even though his pride is scalded, thrown away to the pits of Pennywise’s domain and gone with the wind, feels validated that his baseball skills haven’t left him like his intelligence and motivation to go places in life. Donghyun smothered him in hugs and puckered lips, with Youngmin pushing the boy away and Donghyun pressing even closer to him, crooning loud pet names that make even his own aunt cringes. They break apart by Youngmin’s forceful elbow, grumbling about his personal space and your parents are here be decent god damn it Hyunnie-yah.

At 8 o’clock, Youngmin is manoeuvring Donghyun away to the door, marshalling items of clothing and wallets left on tables and couches. At 10 minutes on the clock, they’ve already hugged, kissed, cried, punched and being punched by family members, little Dowoon giving Youngmin a fierce handshake before knighting him Chief of the Ping Pong Spin. Youngmin doesn’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult, but he accepts the title with as much grace as a twenty- year-old can muster after losing to an eleven-year-old boy.

“Call me when you reach your dorm,” Mrs Kim tells Donghyun. He gives her one last hug. His father grants Youngmin a fierce manly handshake, eyes steely. Youngmin accepts the gesture, head bowed, as the man leans in, mouth close to his ear.

“Thank you.”

That’s the second time another parent of Donghyun told him those exact words to day. Youngmin keeps his head down.

Both of the boys are granted one shoulder squeeze each from Mr Kim, although he doesn’t put up much of a fight when Donghyun throws himself all over him, trying to kiss his cheeks.

By twenty past, they’re in Youngmin’s car, driving back to campus.

“Hey hyungie,” Donghyun jiggles his hand, one hand jammed inside his pocket, “next time let’s visit your mum in Busan.”

“You’ll blow up my living room,” is the only reply Youngmin deems necessary to disclose because what more can be added? Donghyun blew up more things than normally accepted and knowing his own mother and her buttery hands, Youngmin shudders to think of what the outcome of those two in a kitchen would be.

“That’s rude,” Donghyun pouts. There’s no offence behind his words.

Chapter Text

“OH ME GOD HI IT’S YOU TWO!” A shadow comes running at them and Youngmin’s one leg moves to step in front of Donghyun, the rest of his body not even fully comprehending if there’s a threat or a friend incoming. His leg is only sending him warning signs of fight this bitch before my baby is hurt.

He’s got his priorities sorted.

Kim Donghan, 19 years old, memorised enough boy group dances to be the school’s rep for every dance cover competitions, is attractive enough people questioned their sexualities upon contact with him, eats a lot but still looks fit and thin, always wears pink and looks good while wearing it, emerges in full sight, waving liquorice sticks like light sticks. Neither one of them know Donghan enough to ask why or how this whole thing came to be and the kid doesn’t look like he’ll extrapolate soon on how he acquired liquorice sticks at deadass 9 pm on a university campus.

“It’s the campus couple!” Donghan bounces up and down in front of them, high on whatever goes into those liquorice sticks of his. “Donghyunnie and Youngmin-hyung!”

“Go home Donghan-ssi,” Donghyun rolls his eyes, stepping from behind Youngmin’s protective leg. He wrinkles his nose as Donghan squeals and runs at them, stepping aside to avoid making contact with the hideous pink jumper the boy is sporting.

“I want to know how you managed to snag him while the entire campus has been dogged by the dude for years. Tell me your secrets,” Donghan wheedles, winding around both of them, sometimes Youngmin, other times Donghyun, but he manages to herd them both along, talking enough for the two boys.

“Tell you what secrets? There’s nothing.” Donghyun rolls his eyes.

“I knew it. My one true pairing, in the flesh. You two are too special to break up,” Donghan declares loudly.

“That’s too much, kiddo. Go home,” Youngmin ruefully reminds him.

“I can’t I’ve been exiled. My roommate told me to take a walk and never come back.”

“Did you break something dancing to EXO again?” Donghyun asks. For research, he would say, on idiots. Youngmin hears for entertainment, because my friends’ misgivings are not enough to satisfy my hunger for funny stories.

“Yes and no,” Donghan sniffs, wedging himself in between them. Donghyun detaches from Youngmin, rolling his eyes softly and lets Donghan manhandles them to their dorm.

“What did you do then kid?” Youngmin humours him, the unspoken What did you break implied. Donghan sniffs, nose in the air.

“I was dancing to EXO but my roommate had enough of me playing ‘Monster’ on loop so he kicked me out,” he pouts, “also he had his bae but not bae over and they needed ‘peace and quiet’,” he air-quotes, drawing an elbow up and Youngmin’s arm with it, “to study.”

“That roommate needs to get over himself,” Donghyun hums.

“I know right!” Donghan vehemently agrees. “Unbelievable!”

“Thank you for walking us, Donghannie, now scoot,” Youngmin extracts his arm from the brunette’s grip, who whines and attaches himself onto Donghyun, moaning about dying of loneliness and rejection.

“I’ll see you later anyways,” Donghyun gasps as Donghan tightens his hold, almost grabbing his – his…

What is Donghyun to Youngmin and does he deserve to call the blonde his anything?

“Let the kid go,” Youngmin half-asses an eye roll, hoping it looks natural enough. Donghan gives one last squeeze to what now is a full-on neck choke, relinquishing his grip on Donghyun and flying to a shadow coming their way.

Kwon Hyunbin catches a flying Donghan with relative ease, nodding at the both of them and walking away, seizing the back of Donghan’s shirt. Daehwi pokes his head out the door before Hyunbin disappears, hollering a loud ‘Hey hyung!’ after the tall boy.

“Tell me everything,” he turns to them.

“You lost to a twelvie?” Woojin squints.

“You baked his family a cake?” Daehwi asks, mouth dropping open. “Oh my god you two are already married in their eyes that’s it when’s the wedding what do I wear who do I invite-“

“Kids,” Youngmin puts up a hand, “it was a dinner and nothing more. Don’t blow up simple facts.”

Woojin stares at him, face reminiscent of the time he suggested they should play ding dong ditch on every room on their floor (Jaehwan brought milk chocolates, people were drunk and Seungwoo made it seem like a great idea at the time – it wasn’t).

As for Donghyun, Donghyun is mysteriously still, not making a sound. Woojin looks from one guy to the next, eyes flicking in momentary panic as Donghyun, the guy who beforehand couldn’t take his eyes off one Im Youngmin, looks at Daehwi and asks if they could switch rooms tonight.

“The fuck happened?” Woojin sends eye telepathy to Youngmin who looks just as confused as he feels. The hand twiddling alone confirms that whatever happened outside it’ll carry on inside for a long time. By virtue of Donghyun running away from his problem and Youngmin inability to process emotions like a barely functional college student.

“Yeah, sure,” Woojin volunteers and hears the relief in Donghyun’s voice when he thanks him. “Move your shit quickly before I throw everything out in the back.”

“Rude~,” Daehwi chastises him, standing up to hold him in a choke hold, mouth fixed in a smile. “What is happening?” Daehwi grits through a smile.

“Fuck if I know,” Woojin pries him off. Donghyun has scrammed to fetch all of his personal belongings that Woojin holds a grudge over, fearful of the legitimacy of his threat. Park Woojin is a dark horse around campus. Once he declared to half of his year level that he would be in the top 10 ranking by the end of the year while no one took him seriously. Woojin being Woojin accordingly fulfilled his public promise, with many more threats and promises carried out over the years for his words not to be taken lightly. Youngmin follows, but Donghyun quickly closes the door to their shared bedroom, leaving the redhead outside, awkwardly pacing. Daehwi and Woojin spare their eldest hyung a pitiful look before huddling together, trying not to make it obvious that they’re plotting. Against or for their hyungs is up for debate.

“This, this fight, it’ll carry on for at least a week,” the blonde enunciates, eyes dropping wider. He can feel the weight of a headache coming. A week. Might as well draft the divorce files and split their property evenly by the fourth day. Donghyun can’t survive a week without Youngmin. He’ll die within three days.

Woojin voices this concern to Daehwi who looks close to tears. The child believes in happy endings and OTPs becoming reality. Housemates breaking up and divorcing upsets him. Woojin remembered seeing a fanfic penned by Daehwi with too many details close to their lives to not be simultaneously disturbed and worried about his childhood friend’s obsession with romances.

“Pry tonight, and if shit doesn’t turn out well we’ll get external help,” Woojin locks his pinkie with Daehwi. “I promise that this ship will not fall apart with all of my powers.”

“You’re so cool,” Daehwi whispers back, “even though I just saw you failed a handstand and nearly broke a chair.”

“HYUNG! HYUNGIE HE’S MURDERING ME!” Daehwi’s cries could be heard in mere seconds as Woojin executes knuckle rubs in Chinese burns speed on the top of the blonde’s skull.

Youngmin enters to a Park Woojin, perched on his bed, rifling through his lyrics notebook. The children under this roof had since gotten over their fear of him being potentially angered when they pick up his lyric books. Daehwi started cataloguing his last three chronologically and a separate section in order of emotional crises. Donghyun tries attaching melody to his raps and Woojin looks through the verses to find inspiration for his own. The book sits open on the brunette’s lap, his eyebrows stitched together, finger tracing the indents on the page from Youngmin’s many late nights under shitty lighting and a need to write with enough force so that the words can be traced with his finger.

“Hyungie,” Woojin looks up. Youngmin recognises that page. Lines crisscrossed the page. The date for his project’s submission is printed in big slabs.

“Hyungie,” Woojin repeats again, this time with something like realisation in his tone. Youngmin doesn’t answer, striding over to look at what he’s written. Writing while half-asleep isn’t a wise nor recommended decision, because he doesn’t remember shit, even though barely-awake Youngmin has been hitting more than missing with whatever he came up with than sober Youngmin. Scanning the words, Youngmin’s brain does twelve different somersaults inside his head because now it makes sense.

Kim Donghyun is one special boy in his heart and more than anything, Youngmin’s barely conscious (and truthful) brain already decided that his muse, the inspiration to his raps, is one Kim Donghyun.

And anything that ever served as inspiration to Youngmin, they’re as treasured as his closeted artist’s soul can treasure.

“Holy shit,” Woojin stares at him, “hyung please fix your mess with Donghyun-hyung. Hwi-yah loves you both. If you divorce it’ll be a childhood trauma to the kid. Think of your child. Think of this family dynamic.”

“Go to bed Jinnie-yah,” Youngmin reaches to turn off the lights, “we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

In Daehwi’s room, while Donghyun is brushing his teeth, a text flashes on Daehwi’s phone.

alrite dats it boi we callin reinforcement

Ng Sze Kai walks out of her showers, hair’s everywhere, to her phone blaring. The dulcet notes of Soyeon and Donghyun’s joined failed karaoke attempt last year plays on loop as she struggles to find where her phone is. Sihyun thought it was borderline amusing if he rigged everyone’s phone and replaced their previous ringtones with Soyeon and Donghyun’s screeching. Woodam almost had a heart attack. Donghyun himself threw his phone across the room and smashed the screen. Longguo flinched, barely, in his defence, he was taken aback. Soyeon cackled, absolutely in love with the ‘bloody brilliant scheme come here Hyunnie-yah gimme a fist bump.’

Sze Kai is not impressed.

Phone located and sanity barely hanging by, she answers the call, not looking at the caller ID. Her friends have a habit of calling at odd hours into the morning. One time Longguo called her at 2 am to pick him up from another city because he fell asleep on the KTX. Another time Soyeon was stuck on a barbed wire climbing onto a concert and had to be rescued at 2 pm. Sze Kai learnt to be immune against attacks on her sanity. She must preserve, when those around her fall.

“Yes?” She answers.

“Kai-noona?” Donghyun asks.

“What’s wrong kiddo?”

“What the fuck o’clock is it?” Soyeon’s voice grouses. There are sounds of blankets being kicked aside.

Someone spoke Mandarin, swearing. A smack and a soft ‘language, hyung’ is heard. Woodam isn’t there, probably being a productive human being and baking or cleaning his dorm again. A few shuffling sounds and ‘hi’s thrown around, Woodam joins with a soft ‘good morning’.

“Hyungie~!” Donghyun greets. “I’m having another crisis!”

“Fuck it’s like six I didn’t ask to be your friend you bitch,” Soyeon groans.

“I don’t think your tone is appropriate in conveying this,” Sze Kai hums, “crisis of yours.”

“What is the crisis is more important,” Longguo mumbles.

“So I was walking home last night with Minnie-hyung,” Donghyun begins.

“Will this be long? If it’s long I can’t guarantee I’ll stay awake enough for it,” Sihyun interrupts.

“Will you let me go on you bitch?” Donghyun bites back.

“Woodamie-hyung Longguo fell asleep,” Sihyun ignores him.

“Give us the ten second version I don’t need a movie script!” Soyeon shouts over the chatter.

Sze Kai puts a palm to her forehead and breathes in. Out. The children have ceased screaming.

“Walking home, Donghan-hyung sabotaged our walk and said we’re like his OTP and we’re too special to break up, before he intercepted our walk Minnie-hyung was full on ready to take any bitch that comes my way to harm me.”

“Okay and-?” Soyeon prompts. The where is the problem I see none can I go back to sleep now goes unsaid but not unheard.

“Just – I’m so undeserving, with a capital U,” Donghyun tells them, voice unstable.

“Baby, baby,” Woodam rushes, “breathe.”

“I am,” the boy sniffles.

“You are not undeserving. You both deserve each other. Never say that,” Sze Kai reminds him, knowing full well how bad his insecurity is. Sihyun and Soyeon are completely quiet, probably conjuring up all the nice words in their limited word bank to reassure the rare occasion of Donghyun crying.

“Bullshit,” it’s Longguo that speaks. Donghyun is so surprised he pauses his sniffles.

“Bitch,” Sihyun’s voice drags, slowly, over all the syllable, “the fuck?”

“I may not know Donghyun that long or that well, but I can tell you for sure that he chose to be with you, the choice is as much his as it is yours. None of this deserving bullshit. If you chose to be together then you deserve to stay together. It doesn’t come down to who’s better than who – it’s about the both of you maintaining that relationship and staying together. I don’t know what happened exactly but if you think you’re undeserving then he’s probably thinking the same thing. He reacted without thinking. He put your safety before his because he values you more. He doesn’t think that much of himself to protect himself, rather protecting you, who he thinks deserve to be protected. Don’t be stupid. Think. You know him. Don’t make a decision that you’ll regret.”

For five whole ticks of the starfish clock in Sze Kai’s room, courtesy of a drunk Soyeon and Donghyun on their visit to Soyeon’s aunt’s beach house, no one made a sound.

Then the screaming happens.

“Holy shit! Kim Longguo!” Soyeon squeals.

“It’s such good advice I don’t think my advice will do you any justice,” Woodam supplies, in complete and utter awe, at the guy who once declared that he’ll economise his words to raise profits for rescuing stray cats. Kang Daniel was seen squeezing Longguo half to death at the whooping grand total raised of around 100,000 won.

“I’m just trying to process how he could say all of that without breathing,” Sihyun voices, utterly shattered, “wow, yeah, I can’t. My brain’s frazzled. What is speech I don’t know her.”

“You’ve reduced him to a meme, Longguo-hyung,” Donghyun snorts, less crying but still teary.

“You hang up the call and go sit somewhere by yourself so you can reflect your life,” Longguo tells the boy. “Don’t show your face to civilisation until you’ve properly reflected on your stupidity. Leave. Be gone.”

“I’ll bring cookies!” Woodam chirps.

“Daehwi agreed on locking his room for the day. Don’t even come out,” Longguo adds.

“Fucking efficient this guy,” Soyeon sounds borderline impressed.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but,” Sihyun whispers, “that was so cool.”

“Okay yep that’s it, bye, I’m sleeping,” Soyeon abruptly tries to hang up.

“Guys, guys,” Woodam interrupts their bickering, “why is Daehwi texting me about a bet?”

“Oh yeah I started that with him,” Soyeon chimes in.

“What for?”

“For when Youngmin will dramatically win back Donghyun’s love, duh,” Soyeon scoffs.

“You say that like it’s obvious and it’s a fact, but I’m here to inform you that it is not,” Sze Kai counters.

“The most important fact is that the bet is running and the pool is large. We’ve roped like twenty professors and two hundred people into it. Whatever the outcome Daehwi and I will be cashing in lots and that’s all that matters.”

“There is an economic term for this but I have forgotten,” Sihyun helpfully adds to their argument, “but good on you, Yeonie."

“Yah, I’m older.”

“But I’m smarter, so your point is invalid.” Soyeon doesn’t dignify Sihyun’s response with a coherent one, choosing to emit a war cry and roll off her bed.

“No killing,” Sze Kai reminds them absentmindedly.

“Please wear something warm if you’re heading out, winter is close,” Woodam says before hanging up the call.

One Lee Daehwi had sacrificed his beauty sleep in contacting a friend who knows another friend who knows Jin Longguo. In a scramble to remember who it was that told him about Longguo’s miraculous ability to give very effective advice, he almost knocked himself out on the table next to his head. Manoeuvring with excessive care, he stumbled onto the kitchen where one Park Woojin emerged from the fridge, squinting at noises before 6 am on a weekend. Or on any day. Hand motions flew and a chain of Chinese whisper mixed with confused Morse code tapping, Woojin seized Daehwi’s phone from him, squinted at the unknown number and spoke into the receiver.

“If you’re a friend of Donghyun-hyung, if he happens to call you today at all please talk sense into his thick head he thinks he’s not good enough for Youngmin-hyung.”

There was silence. Then, a soft ‘okay I’ll do that’ replied.

“If possible, fight him for us,” Woojin suggested.

“I’m not sure how successful I’ll be but I’ll try,” the guy told them.

“Who was that?” Youngmin emerged from his room, hair five different directions. Daehwi immediately plastered on the sweetest, I’m-innocent-and-up-to-absolutely-nothing-at-all smile. It fooled no one under that household, but Youngmin’s barely awake brain took that smile for a standard Daehwi Smile, categorising it as relatively harmless and wobbled his way to the bathroom. He scribbled a note, still half-asleep, to Donghyun, before telling the two boys goodbye as he walked to the campus’ studio.

“Hyung,” Daehwi nudged him, “how much are you gonna bet that Donghyun hyung will pick him up today after his class?”

“Nothing,” Woojin scoffed, “he’ll do it anyways why bother betting.”

Chapter Text

The walk to Youngmin’s class may not be the most awkward Donghyun has to face yet on his list, but it’s close. He’s hyperaware of everything happening outside of his head, glancing this way and that, breathing shallowly.

Ong Seungwoo sees him this time, waving and Donghyun manages a weak wave back, heart spasming inside his ribs. Youngmin’s trademark red hair with dark roots follow Ong, eyes not completely focused on a blatant Kim Donghyun standing smack bang in front of his lecture hall.

He contemplates running, but Seungwoo points to him and he counts the seconds he has before the inevitable eye contact cannot be avoided.

Two and half, but maybe it’s more. He’s not so sure. He didn’t invent time.

Youngmin goes completely still, buffering in real life, but springs back up to a functioning human again in a second, striding over and offering his elbow to Donghyun, the familiarity of their everyday routine trained in his movements. Donghyun slides his own hand over the crook of the proffered elbow, following along until they reach a certain point outside that he remembers Youngmin is being weird with him and the elbow holding should not be happening.

Sensing his distress, Youngmin drops out of the hold. Some part of Donghyun is telling him that he should be following his routine and not break the pattern, but other parts are screaming at him to stop this, whatever this is.

It’s a complicated situation.

“You don’t have to pick me up after class if you don’t want to,” Youngmin tells him, sound barely audible.

“No,” Donghyun hops up.

“No?”

“I’ll pick you up. Let’s not break routine,” he amends. Hopes his voice doesn’t betray how shaky he feels.

“Okay Hyunnie-yah.”

This continues over the course of a few days.Longguo is disappointed at the lack of personal reflection and his general stupidity. Soyeon gives him a wide berth in case he starts crying again, but awkwardly promises to fight Youngmin if that would make him feel better. Woodam vetoes that, along with Sze Kai. There’s been an endless supply of baked goods and food and trips to the cinema. Despite the pampering from his friends, the situation inside his dorm falls nothing short of walking on top of a yet-to-explode minefield. Daehwi and Woojin take no side, eyes wary every time dinner rolls around, Youngmin sitting as far as humanly possible from Donghyun. The sleeping arrangements remain infinitely on hiatus, Daehwi sharing with Donghyun and the other two sharing. Sometimes Donghyun does a thing that he always does with Youngmin that baffles Daehwi (like asking to hear freestyle rap one night – Daehwi attempted, it was adorable, but at Donghyun’s crestfallen expression at his own Freudian slip-up, Daehwi quickly turned off the lights and jumped into bed) which creates the situation of them not talking of it in the next day.

They still don’t talk. However, they communicate over Post-It Notes.

The Post-It notes keep stacking. Woojin kindly donated a box when he saw the mini pile in his own room next to Donghyun’s stack of textbooks. Donghyun doesn’t remember what face he made when he saw the box and Woojin, but it’s probably something close to his crying face, which, according to Soyeon, is ‘so ugly you would make people cry for you’. Woojin awkwardly sat with him as he stacked the notes inside and only left when he started his homework.

That was an hour ago. Now he sits back on the chair, head tossed to the ceiling, counting the seconds ticking by inside his head. One. Two. Three.

It’s boring. The next minute seems so far away.

Go sit somewhere by yourself so you can reflect your life, Longguo’s words ring inside his ears, on loop, playing at the consistency of Soyeon wanting bloodshed and murder on her enemies after every judo match. He’s by himself and he’s sort of reflecting. Don’t show your face to civilisation until you’ve properly reflected on your stupidity, the rest of Longguo’s advice runs concurrently to Soyeon’s bloodcurdling war cry.

He sighs. It’ll be a long hour ahead.

Im Youngmin made plenty of songs over his music education. He wrote and composed tracks for all of his friends and even helped Woojin with one of his assignments. He is natural and effortless in what he does, everyone assumed. He too thinks that music flows out of his pores and with only one tap he can access the unlimited fountain of music genius-ness.

It does not work like that.

He’s been stuck on this end of year project for too long. It’s been nearly a month and by now as with previous projects, he would be polishing and refining the final product, but the reality is that the submission date is drawing close, two more weeks, and while he has lyrics to base his soundtrack on, it’s clearly not going to be up to standard when compared to his previous works.

“Hyung,” he remembers Woojin telling him, “all your days and hours start with Donghyun-hyung?”

He scans the words.

“They do start with Kim Donghyun.”

He starts recording, a melody coming to him like it’s been waiting for the lyrics to form. It’s almost embarrassing how long the words took to materialise, but now that half the work is done, he’s ready to work out the rest.

Donghyun feels as if he is inside a dream. The scary part is that he is not too sure if it is a dream or not because everything he sees is just what his dialy routine is like: wake up to a note from Youngmin, eat breakfast with Woojin and Daehwi the babies, walk to his first class with Sze Kai and Sihyun, pick up Youngmin and take him to lunch, eat in awkward silence with Youngmin, let Youngmin walk him to his next class, text him once he’s inside, hang out with his squad by the Han until he has to come home for dinner, eat in awkward silence with the rest of the dorm, trying to avoid Youngmin, sleeping while regretting that he hasn’t confronted Youngmin.

Maybe his brain is somewhat awake, but a voice too similar to Longguo reminds him that it’s an awful lot of Youngmins in a sentence.

Donghyun backtracks and counts. It is a lot.

What else does he do with Youngmin? What does he not do with Youngmin?

Donghyun quickly goes through a dodgy list. He and Youngmin, as a unit:

1. Know each other’s schedules like, weirdly well, even to the standards of committed to memory
2. Have lunch together 365 days every year ever since they met each other
3. They’re always each other’s plus ones
4. Have met each other’s families, more than once
5. Share the same bedroom
6. Know preferred drink orders and dietary requirements
7. Nag each other about health problems and aggressively care for each other when one of them falls sick
8. Is each other’s venting post
9. Know the passwords on their respective phones
10. When people see them without the other outside of spending time with their squads, they assume the other person is dead, hospitalised or visiting someone on the other side of the planet
11. Have been asked and tasked with the role of fake dates/boyfriends multiple times before
12. Clingy

“Oh my god,” Donghyun reaches a point where he could go on forever because he knows now, it all makes so much sense, “this is like I’m already dating him what the actual fuck.”

He snaps his head level with the wall and repeats to himself, “I am pretty much in a relationship with Im Youngmin.”

“Why’d you call?” Jinyoung (the pink one, his friend, not his potential in-law Baejin), plops to the other available chair in the studio, looking at his desktop. Youngmin is quiet, hands laced together, the tab of his barely finished soundtrack open and ready to play.

“I might’ve realised that I’m really in love with Donghyunnie and I need advices on how to come clean about the bet with him?” Youngmin say/asks.

“Oh yeah, ‘bout that thing,” Jinyoung leans back as far as he can on the chair, “I took care of it.”

“How?” The redhead squints.

“Just told Yujin and she shredded the last of his dignity. She wanted to apologise to you too but I told her it’s none of her fault.”

“Woo Jinyoung,” Youngmin says, in wonder, with extra feelings, “you’re officially my favourite dongsaeng.”

Jinyoung looks like he’s happier without that title affixed to his name and reputation.

“What’s left for your sad ass to tell him shit, confess him, sweep him off his feet, whatever and stop spamming my phone with distressed messages,” Jinyoung looks out of it, “I’ll even dye my hair if you manage to do it at the love confession stage.”

“That’s in two days, Jinyoung-ah.”

“Which is high-key impossible I know, but the cost of my relinquishing my pink shade isn’t cheap or attainable. I’m holding out for longer than the great Kang. Two more days and I win a free meal from Ong-ssi.”

Youngmin has a light bulb moment, suddenly smacking Jinyoung’s chest. “I have a proposition for you, young one.”

“Shut up there’s like a year difference between the two of us,” the pink monster grumbles but listens anyways, “shoot.”

“I confess to Donghyunnie, you dye your hair but still get free food from Ong.”

Jinyoung is so still Youngmin needs to double-check if he’s even breathing.

“Shit that’s a good plan hyung, oh wow,” he agrees, he’s an excellent snake. “Let’s do it.”

“That’s why I called you and the squad over to hear my latest creation, sound check and lyric check and everything,” Youngmin tells him. Jinyoung squints at the keyboard screen, trying to uncover the screen with his eyes and failing, slumping back onto his chair.

“Oh shit Woongie is coming he’s going to crush my windpipe,” Jinyoung tries to escape by knocking a hole on the wall or some other means, but he’s a bit late. Euiwoong throws open the door and tackles him in an affectionate choke hold, swinging him back and forth. Seongri strolls in, face refreshingly clear of any eye bags – his project and tests probably clearing up for a while, dropping by Youngmin’s desk and giving him a one-armed hug.

“Is this your song? You’ve finished it right?” Euiwoong points a finely manicured finger at the screen, face excited, his grip loosening somewhat on Jinyoung who gasps and chokes theatrically. “I wanna hear! I wanna hear!”

“Can I see the lyrics?” Seongri seats himself on Jinyoung’s chair, leaving no chairs for the other two. Youngmin passes his book over, starting the speaker.

“I’m going to die,” Jinyoung wheezes.

“Eh,” Youngmin shrugs, “my eulogy is already drafted. I’ll tweak the dates a bit and it’s good.”

“Fucking traitor you snake.”

“Woongie-yah, sit on hyung’s lap I’m about to start,” Youngmin pats his thighs, reaching over to click play. Seongri generously settles into the chair for Jinyoung to delicately perch on his crossed knees, cheeks puffed out in annoyance. As the speaker plays the intro, all four boys miraculously freeze, ears perked for the famed music that is composed and produced by one of the music geniuses on campus.

To our interlocking patterns

Yours that fits mine so crookedly

All my days are ending

All my nights are dying

All my minutes hours seconds

They belong to you  

Someone is crying, out of joy or sadness of his lyrics and melody he’s not quite sure.

“It’s so fucking gay!” Jinyoung legit bawls, swinging his fists around.

“It’s beautiful and soft and cute and gross,” Seongri complains, eyes teary, “I want to perform it.”

Youngmin sits still as Euiwoong chastises the both of them. “Shut up, it’s so touching, and I love it. Hyung, it’s different this time. You did so well.”

“Seongri-hyung,” Youngmin doesn’t hear anything besides ‘I want to perform it’, “will you be fine singing it?”

“Where?” Seongri asks, which is as close as a ‘yes’ as he can get.

“The Valentine’s stage.”

Seongri nearly kicks Jinyoung off with how quickly he stands up. “Let’s do it boys.

“My beautiful pink hair,” Jinyoung mourns.

“I want to film it, hyung’s slaying everyone with your vocals,” Euiwoong pipes in.

“Please give proper copyrights,” Youngmin reminds him.

Daehwi thinks that it’s fascinating that Donghyun goes from aggressively avoiding to hesitantly trying to make contact with Youngming, to varying successes, which is to say, not at all. One time he came close but Youngmin booked the hell out of that situation, a funny scene but depressingly implicated because now it’s Youngmin Who Is Excellent At Running avoiding Donghyun.

Donghyun looks rejected, the withdrawal symptoms of not being around an Im Youngmin constantly starting to kick in. He called Daehwi ‘Youngmin-hyung’ at least three times a day, had called Woojin ‘hyung’ a couple of times and asked both of them in the span of five minutes why their hairs aren’t red.

Woojin kicks his ankle the minute Donghyun leaves to take a call from Woodam, jerking his head to the kitchen. They crowd around the fridge with the pretence of ransacking food but in reality they are plotting.

“We need a forceful intervention like now,” Woojin flicks his eyes to the direction Donghyun left, otherwise he’ll start crying next.

“What intervention? He thinks you’re hyung,” Daehwi pokes the brunette in the shoulders, “he’s crying as we speak!”

“Kids,” Donghyun emerges from his call, miraculously tear-free, “Woodam-hyung is performing requests at the confession stage. You two wanna go with me, for moral support?”

Daehwi and Woojin, by virtue of spending five years-ish together, can exercise the privileged and powerful conversational eye telepathy.

“Intervention!” Woojin widens his eyes.

“Youngminnie-hyung is performing too, it’s a music department’s thing,” Daehwi tosses his head to the bedroom of the missing occupant of their dorm, lifting his brow.

“Double intervention!” Woojin throws his shoulders up.

“Great idea,” Daehwi points at his face before turning to Donghyun.

“Sounds like a great idea hyungie! Let’s all go!”

Chapter Text

One thing that needs to be said about the confession stage is that people take it very seriously. The stage is handled professionally, and the organisers plan this three months prior to the event. None of the revenue and cost ever come out of the students’ pockets, as one Choi Taewoong allegedly stayed in the library for a week to search for a code of conduct in the school’s founding principles that annual, not-for-profit, student-led and run events, to a maximum of three, are not accosted to the students’ expense. It exploded in a long legal battle from the students to the school board, with formidable faces like Noh Taehyun and Yoon Jisung joining. The students won, Taewoong slept for a week and didn’t come near coffee ever since, the smell of it traumatic, and every year the confession stage upgrades itself to be better than last year. The event coordinators are always happy to take in requests for improvements exploiting the board’s funds and Valentine is the chosen theme this year. As usual, Ahn Hyeongseob, who is heading the event this year, went full out with all the possible shades of pink, red and white. Ribbons and glass bulbs and candles and lanterns hang on wires leading up to the stage, with cherry blossom petals in baskets, carried by some very willing volunteers who throw them at people’s faces whenever they feel like it. Jaehwan’s cackles can be heard a kilometre away as he throws things at unsuspecting strangers who flee in fear for their life and eardrums.

This year, however, the campus is holding its breath for the acts and performances. There is talk of a certain Taiwanese boy wooing his beau on stage with a self-written rap, anonymous requests that are highly anticipated, not naming anyone but a small face brunette. The most anticipated one is arguably, Im Youngmin’s. Daehwi and Soyeon started a betting pool to when and how Youngmin would dramatically declare his undying love for Donghyun, to which so far he is winning. Professors, students, janitors, some interns joined in, many of them invested in the drama ensuing. In an aptly-named historical shift of campus-wide opinions, not since someone started a campus-wide assassin game and Donghan ended up winning, causing a seismic-size uproar, with people rioting against the legitimacy of the monitoring process, everyone has gone from betting on Youngmin’s stupid-ass riddles to betting on his relationship with Donghyun. The days of Youngmin’s quizzes would stay permanent scars for some, in their broken hearts, or as a laughing stock for others, permanently saved in their brains. Daehwi and Soyeon are neck to neck in their bids for money, making intense eye contact every time they see each other on campus. The professors too, are weirdly invested, too amused and fascinated by a majority’s interest to doubt the slight stalkerish implications to what the bet entails.

The confession stage is here and everyone is holding their breath, waiting to see the outcome of the bet and outcome of Donghyun x Youngmin.

“The list of performances for today,” Sihyun drops a booklet onto Donghyun’s head. He splutters and catches it before it falls to the ground, immersed in eating his cotton candy, courtesy of Woojin who pitied his puppy dog face.

“Thanks?” He looks at Sihyun who sighs and shoves the back of his head, stalking off, looking for Longgo. Sze Kai sits herself next to him, asking for his wellbeing with her eyes.

“I’m all good, noona,” he waves the concern aside, “excited for the performances though.”

“Woodam is performing, so is Soyeonie, Sungwoon-ssi, Jaehwan-ah, I think someone requested Woojin as well,” Sze Kai peers at the booklet, “oh no, that’s Woo, never mind.”

“Longguo is singing too,” he points to the second act.

“It’s for Sihyunnie,” Sze Kai rolls her eyes.

“5,000 he’s gonna cry.”

“Potato swirls. You’re on.”

Just at that moment, Hyeongseob steps onto the stage, decked out in simple white shirt and slacks, looking adorably presentable. His friends clap and whoop for him, Ong Seungwoo the loudest, as he bows and says some opening crediting speech. Sze Kai and Donghyun both tune out the boring information but tune back in when the words “We will have our first performer, Kim Seongri, onto the stage,” eyes trained on the stage for one of the remarkable vocalists to make an entrance.

Seongri is dressed in a striped shirt, some suspenders and black polished shoes. The music department whistles and throws petals at the stage with the boy having to shelter his face from the onslaught of petals. Clearing his throat, he hovers near the microphone, smiles at the crowd and opens his request.

“To Kim Donghyun, may this song remind you of how much you mean to me. Love, Anonymous.”

The entire audience explodes.

Flower petals rain down on him in a flood of pink. At some point there is glitter involved. Girls wail, boys scream, professors’ astonished cries mixing in between, someone starts chanting ‘SING IT’ into a microphone and the ripple effect carries out, with Hyeongseob’s squad leading the chant with matching harmony.

“SING IT,” the crowd demands.

“I’m singing it now,” Seongri concedes onstage. “Please enjoy.”

When I told you yesterday that all my days are ending

You took my hand in yours and simply sat by me

Crystal glass and castles in the clouds

The days of you and me

Hand in hand under amber lights

Where is it that I have learnt

The way you walk talk lean

Sideways to the left, with a tilt to your hair

Moonlight and twilight splashing over your skin

Where is it in between

Our midnight escapades

To the plain hillside with ransacked snacks and a bottle of cola

Sightseeing the dullest stars in city-filled lights

To our interlocking patterns

Yours that fits mine so crookedly

All my days are ending

All my nights are dying

All my minutes hours seconds

They are for you

My time

They end and start with you

Like an angel leaving imprints on the first snow

You too have imprinted freshly on my soul

But unlike my time here on earth and the melting snow

The memories of us of you

Stay together forever inside my heart

“When I told you yesterday that all my days are ending,” Seongri whispers into the microphone, “you told me that you would die as I die and you would live as I live.”

The crowd bursts into collective tears. Someone bawls so loud it drowns out the feedback from the microphone onstage as Seongri jerks back from a flying shoe, feet tripping over a cord.

“You bastard!” He hears Daehwi screams. “Give me back my feelings!”

“Will the anonymous requester reveal their identity or will the sender of this song forever be a mystery?” Hyeongseob reappears, mike near his lips, eyes dashing out onto the audience as if to look for a perpetrator.

Donghyun, for his part, notices none of this. He knows who it is the moment the bridge hits. Midnight escapades with Youngmin. They drove in Youngmin’s rotten car and pulled over to stargaze, even though the city lights could be seen from a distance. Donghyun walks with a lean to his head. The song documents his interactions and insignificant moments with Youngmin, too acutely for it to be written by anyone other than Youngmin himself. But by that, it would mean that at least Youngmin reciprocates Donghyun’s Dorothy’s hurricane-sized emotional crises. Maybe. Nothing is ever certain. Too many facts are happening and his brain is logging out of his head in an attempt to process everything that hit him at hurricane speed level negative 5.

“Hello, my name is Im Youngmin and I’m the requester of the first song. Coincidentally I also wrote, composed and arranged the song. I hope the audience enjoyed my work,” a familiar voice greets the audience. The noise level rises again, breaking new sound barriers. Donghyun glances to see Daehwi jumping up and down, throwing his jacket like a rodeo whip, screeching in dolphin-like pitch. A lot of professors are weeping. He doesn’t see any of this. He only sees Youngmin staring dead straight at him from the stage and he’s running to the tree that on the first week he ran into trying to catch some upperclassmen stealing his phone.

Youngmin runs at him too, panting.

“You, what kind of shitty way to confess is that?” Donghyun points an accusatory finger at Youngmin who probably hears the that was cute please keep doing it inside his voice

“You inspired me,” Youngmin doesn’t heed Donghyun’s frantic gestures at creating comfortable distance between the two of them, leaning in, “you gave my music soul.”

“Okay ,time out time out, move the fuck back, bitch,” Donghyun shoves the boy on the shoulder, “now from the top, with normal speech, because I want to hear it.”

“Because you know it?” The left side of Youngmin’s mouth lifts up, his eyes scrunched up cutely.

“Chop chop I’m a busy boy. I need to film and make fun of Sihyunnie in two minutes do hurry the hell up,” he starts clapping, unable to hold the giddiness inside his chest. Youngmin grabs his hands, encasing them inside his bigger ones, touching his forehead to Donghyun’s.

“When I first met you, you were a nerd, after knowing you, you’re still a nerd, but like, a cute nerd,” Youngmin puts on as serious as a voice as he can. Donghyun kicks him, lower lip jutting out in faked annoyance. He’s not really annoyed. It’s such a Youngmin-esque way to confess he is disappointed in himself in envisioning a grand gesture. The song was too grand as it is.

“Fucking rude, this guy.”

“But I really enjoy my time with you. You’re everywhere in my life to suddenly cut out. I have withdrawal symptoms from separation, the whole let’s go our own way gig doesn’t help my symptoms at all. Wouldn’t it be too much of a shame to suddenly cut me out of your life and find out that I’m hospitalised because I can’t live without your dumb face?”

How. Fucking. Dare. He. This. Stupid. Asshole.

“You can’t live without me? I can’t live without you!” Donghyun stomps his feet on the ground. After his words linger in the air for the appropriate span of two seconds, Youngmin’s ears blush bright pink, pupils dilated.

“You – you feel the same way too?”

“Yes hyung, of course. I took you to see my parents. You’ve been my first and only fake boyfriend. My friends think I’m dead when they don’t see me with you. You made up stupid riddles to trip the entire campus up that only I know the answers to. One would think that we’re already married,” he rolls his eyes, bluffing his confidence. Inside he’s crying, but outside he is a Cool Suave Man Who Knows How To Confidence.

“Oh good otherwise all of this would be awkward,” Youngmin breathes out, breath fanning on Donghyun’s lips.

“Extremely,” Donghyun agrees.

“Remember when I told you there was a bet involved when I agreed to be your family’s personal laughing stock?”

“Yeah, what?”

“This one guy who likes this girl I turned down followed me and Jinyoungie, started up a shit show and one thing snowballed to another, I walked out of it into a bet with him. I agreed mainly because he made it seem like he’ll stalk you and do something to you and I was paranoid, so I said yes. Jinyoungie said it was a stupidly chivalrous reason to say yes to a bet, with a few choice words –“

“Jinyoung-hyung is right,” Donghyun agrees, “you’re a stupid gentleman.”

“Let me finish damn it,” Youngmin nudges his forehead. “But eventually it became very clear to me that I’m not doing anything out of routine, I’m just keeping an eye out for some creep trying to cut you. When Donghannie came at us, I reacted suddenly because my brain told me it was the guy and I legit was ready to fight him, shadow duelling and shit in the dark.”

He stops suddenly, face squeezed in what Donghyun termed ‘trying to find whatever else I need to remember’.

“You can’t just stop like that I don’t understand how that has any correlation with this,” Donghyun gestures to their clasped hands with his clasped hands.

“Don’t hate me because I didn’t tell you this?” Youngmin asks/pleads.

“Hyung, you literally bought my parents Christmas presents without telling me and registered me in that competition. I think I’m past the point of hating you for good-intentioned shit that you cooked up,” he rolls his eyes.

“That’s so anticlimactic. I had a whole speech planned,” Youngmin complains.

“Boo hoo, what a bloody shame. Next.”

"Marry me?” Youngmin asks, hopeful.

“When the law changes. Let’s just settle with being engaged for now. Next,” Donghyun replies, as a half-joke half-wistful thinking.

Youngmin gets so excited he lets out a whoop and drops Donghyun’s hands. The breath he’s been suppressing inside is let loose but Youngmin doesn’t allow a moment of reprieve, squeezing Donghyun in a bone-crushing hug seconds later, arms wrapping with octopus-like grip. He chokes, floundering, until he hears the frantic beating of Youngmin’s chest, directly diagonal to his. The beating doesn’t calm down when Donghyun settles his head in the crook of Youngmin’s neck, but there’s a soft breath that sounds like relief when Youngmin can feel the beating of his heart too, mirroring his own rhythm.

“Move back into our room,” Youngmin mumbles.

“Well I mean, it’d be awkward for me because I already moved all my shit in there this morning?”

Youngmin emits a bat squeal and squishes him even more, nose inside his hair, one hand on the back of his neck and one hand on the small of his back.

“Okay yep that’s it I have to see Sihyunnie faint because Longguo is singing. Come on,” Donghyun pushes Youngmin off him, smile on his lips as the older boy whines, hands fitting crookedly into his.

“Can I have a kiss?” Youngmin asks him. Hopeful.

“Maybe next time.”

“We should all sit down,” Sihyun puts his foot down, eyes properly shielded behind glasses supplied by Sze Kai. People drop to the ground, picnic blankets set out already by Sze Kai in her leisure. Daehwi hops onto Soyeon’s back, giggling as his fists hold wads of cash. Woojin distastefully eyes the dirt under his jeans and rolls his eyes to somewhere not the ground, face wishing to be anywhere else but here. Woodam, changed out of the jumper that Jaehwan threw a bottle of Fanta at, lugs two baskets, with one Euiwoong and Seongri following with more food.

“I want to congratulate my bro, my dude my friend for the iconic love declarations just then. Boyfriend goals, husband goals,” Euiwoong pauses, searching for more words, “I just want someone like you.”

“Then date him,” Jinyoung snipes.

“I’d rather not,” the boy denies just as quickly.

“I am right here,” Youngmin tells them. Soyeon throws a grape at his head and boos at him.

“This is a cool conglomeration of friends, of the holy band of merry brothers,” Jinyoung looks around.

“That’s copyrighted to our squad, get your own,” Woojin flashes one threatening snaggletooth his way.

“Why am I a brother?” Sze Kai asks, offended.

“Babbling, bumbling band of baboons?” Sihyun offers.

“Deal,” Daehwi throws a lettuce leaf at him. “The lyrics are so soft they make me emo,” he gives a thumb up to Youngmin who grins at him, pulling Donghyun even closer. It’s been fifteen minutes, and no one said ‘disgusting’ yet – quite a feat given that they have Sihyun and Jinyoung in the same space.

“Guys, we have an announcement,” Donghyun cringes a little bit at the cliché opening line, recoiling into himself. Youngmin taps the back of his hand twice, and Donghyun soldiers on, wanting everything to be in the open, “it’d be nice if y’all don’t laugh at us.”

“You’re pregnant?” Euiwoong hazards a guess.

“He’s a guy. They’re both guys,” Sihyun wails, reaching over in an attempt of throttling the much taller boy, “it’s biologically impossible you idiot.”

“You’re moving to America to legalise your marriage?” Daehwi suggests, a bit hopeful.

“Good idea but we’re not financially stable enough,” Donghyun points at him, “although thank you for that suggestion.”

“We’re dating,” Youngmin interrupts.

“Congrats?” Soyeon squints.

“We already knew?” Seongri looks at the both of them like they asked to elope without his permission.

“No, like, today, we are dating as from today onwards” Donghyun confirms, just to be sure, and people shrug like it’s not a pressing matter. Sitting back, he feels a weight lift itself from his shoulder. Youngmin however is sitting ramrod straight, staring at Sze Kai.

Daehwi however is the person who shrieks, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE DATING AS OF TODAY WHAT ABOUT YESTERDAY?”

“It wasn’t official until an hour ago,” Donghyun tells him.

Soyeon screams so loud it rivals Woodam’s legendary five octave pitch in their karaoke session of Pretty U. Seongri pinches the space between his freshly drawn on eyebrows, chanting something like ‘Keep calm and don’t resort to murder you are above homicide’. Sze Kai drops her plate, strawberries all over the blanket. Woojin shoots up, eyes wide, stutter in fast forward speed, satoori pouring out of him, rivalling Youngmin’s. Sihyun drops to the blanket, meeting the ground like a death embrace.

“I’m so confused. I thought you guys were engaged and everything,” Euiwoong points at them, “this makes no sense. I just assumed you’re dating.”

“The dating thing shouldn’t be news it’s been an established fact for a while,” Longguo salvages the strawberries, chewing one thoughtfully

“But how – what – how were you two not -?” Woojin grabs at words and fails, dropping down miserably.

“I fucking give up,” Soyeon throws her hands up and the last of her sanity.

Woodam hums, very calm next to Jinyoung. They share a half-relieved half-exasperated look, Woodam patting Donghyun on the shoulder.

“Let’s be fair though,” Seongri stops his murderous mantra, “he called me ‘some guy I know’ five years into our friendship. I qualify for the title of childhood friend, but only after three whole days of me pestering him that he started introducing me as his childhood friend to people.”

“I thought you were having a couple’s spat this week,” Woojin accuses them, fast satoori angry, “I thought you were gonna divorce each other!”

“That’s what we thought too when he’s like I have no one to come to my folk’s dinner thing,” Sihyun lobs a slice of baguette at them. Youngmin swats it in mid-air like the badass he is, with grapes pelting off to the side of his head by Daehwi and Euiwoong. “Bitch you have hyung why did you ask.”

“Oh my fucking lord,” Soyeon complains, “you took like five years off my life when you were moping around.”

“What’s important,” Jinyoung interrupts, “is that now everything is official and great and we need to stop throwing food,” he swats a food projectile soaring at him, “at people.”

Sihyun aims himself with a plate of grapes.

“Can we starve him?” Soyeon points to the doctor intern.

“No hope, Longguo-ssi will feed him,” Seongri takes out a sandwich.

“Hyung, there’s not enough food!” Euiwoong turns to Woodam.

“No fear, one Ong is ready to pay for a meal,” Jinyoung spreads his arms in a kind gesture. “So I’m getting sushi. Throw orders at me.”

“I need to eat my weight in fruits to compensate all of that emotional trauma,” Donghyun stacks his plate. A similar plate is shoved under his nose, literally, with one blank-faced Im Youngmin staring at the identical plates.

“Shit sorry I just did it,” the boy apologises. Donghyun’s face automatically breaks into a grin, eye smiles bright. Daehwi yells at them to ‘calm down there are children here’. Youngmin bumps into him, winking back.

But unlike my time here on earth and the melting snow

The memories of us of you

Stay together forever inside my heart

Im Youngmin, All my days are ending, 2017

For my muse, my love, my life, K. D. H