Work Text:
Maybe it was the caffeine in his bloodstream, or maybe it was the loud ticking of his clock (an analog clock in the year 2018?), but whatever it was, Park Woojin was ready to punch a hole through his screen.
Of course he waited until the last minute to finish his project—he wouldn’t be him if he didn’t. Somehow his computer also had to freeze two minutes before the submission deadline, a problem which, in all fairness, actually wasn’t his fault for once. He’s a web design guy, not a computer nerd, goddamnit.
And as it turns out, desperately flinging your mouse around and wanting to smash your face into the keyboard isn’t a viable solution to the situation here.
The cursed machinery finally stops its infernal whirring and settles down with only a minute left in Woojin’s deadline. His finger slips about eighteen times leading up to entering his email, making him wonder whether if natural selection finally coming for him. His heart thumps loudly in his chest and he swears he could feel it attempting escape from his throat.
Thirty seconds left—he finally finds his professor’s email on the list.
Twenty seconds—he frantically scrolls through his files named ‘aaaa.png’, ‘hfdbkd.png’, and ‘fuck.mp4’ respectively before finally spotting his precious ‘assignment.zip’ file and attaching it to the email.
Ten seconds—he accidentally highlights the “send” button instead of clicking it. Screams can be heard.
Five—it finally goes through, a green tick appearing next to the very words of god: ‘sent successfully’.
Woojin lets out a triumphant cheer but then collapses back into his chair in exhaustion. His hands were shaking but he’s never felt more alive. Him, a whole Woojin, actually submitting an assignment on time (or at all)? 2017’s Woojin could only dream about this level of competence. Sure, the bar was so low even Ms. Shorty-Pants Choi Yoojung could reach it, but goddamnit! It was about the little victories in life!
After some stress-relief screeching and various tweets about how he was a god amongst men, Woojin decided to close up his computer for the night. He was dead tired and he had plans with Jihoon tomorrow—a date where lateness would result in a severe ass-kicking by the boyfriend himself.
So he reaches back to his mouse and closes the windows one by one until he reaches the final folder, named ‘assignmentfinal.zip’. In it were the contents of the project he had slaved over for the past week, all named and organized neatly...but wait— if this was where his actual assignment was then…
Oh no.
In a fit of panic, Woojin finds the file he had sent and double-clicks it with a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach.
Then, lo and behold, the only file sitting in the folder smiling at him smugly—
Was a distorted Shrek meme.
“Jihoon!” Woojin screeches from across the hall and Jihoon almost smacks him upside the head for bursting his eardrums.
“What the fuck!?” Jihoon yells back as Woojin bounds over in what seemed to be (fake) tears.
“My assignment— stupid deadline— Shrek!” Woojin mimes out in frustration as if the other would understand him. “I shrekt Professor Kim, Jihoon!”
Jihoon stares at him with a mixture of confusion, disgust, and horror. “What the actual fuck are you talking about.”
“I sent! A picture of Shrek! To Professor Kim!”
“Why would you do that?!”
“I used it as a placeholder!”
“Why would you do that?!”
“I don’t know, Jihoon! Do I look like I know things?!”
The two take a moment to catch their breaths, promptly ignoring all the attention they had drawn with their less-than-subtle exchange.
Jihoon lets out a wheeze which evolves into laughter as he finally processes the situation Woojin had gotten himself into. Wouldn’t have expected anything less from the man himself.
“This isn’t funn—ok yeah, it kinda is—but help? Please?” Woojin begs with a whimper. “I need to replace Shrek with the actual project and I can’t do it alone.”
“Hah, don’t drag me into this,” Jihoon snorts, rolling his eyes.
“Babe…”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me—I have my own reputation to consider.”
“I’ll do anything.”
Jihoon’s eyes suddenly gain a mischievous sparkle. “Anything?”
Woojin could almost feel the temperature in the room go down.
“Yeah…?”
“Deal,” Jihoon’s tone says ‘angel’ but his face says ‘run for your fucking life’, and suddenly Woojin regrets asking.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Jihoon pulls Woojin down onto the seat beside him. “Professor Kim is a lazy ass and he doesn’t check the submissions until it’s basically almost time to grade. This means we’ll have about…three days to work,” he smiles almost smugly at Woojin. “I’ll distract him and you do the file swap.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Are you implying that my superior distracting skills aren’t up to par?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Part of Woojin thinks it’s suspicious how familiar Jihoon seems with these kind of operations, but Jihoon only gives him a coy “don’t ask questions you don’t wanna know the answers to,” which prompts him to shut up in fear for his life.
(He’ll admit it’s kinda hot though.)
The next few days pass in a blur, a mixture of his friends laughing at his misery, smiling in pity, and rightfully calling him a fucking loser. Even at home he wasn’t safe since the hashtag squad had chosen his place to crash for dinner and movies. They say it’s to help him calm his nerves before D-day tomorrow, but Woojin knows it’s just an excuse to mess around.
“You just had to pick Shrek 2, didn’t you?” Woojin’s fist clenches around the cushion, holding it threateningly above his boyfriend.
“What do you meaaan? I didn’t pick it—” Jihoon looks around in a quick panic. “—Doyeon did!”
“What?!” Doyeon yells from across the room, the offense clear in her voice. “That is slander, Park Jihoon!”
“Well then sue me,” Jihoon sticks out his tongue only to be hit in the face by Woojin’s cushion. “—Mmf!”
“Hey, stop! There’s popcorn at stake here, you monsters!” Yoojung squeals, rescuing the bowl from the Parks’ scuffle.
Eventually, the quartet settle down on the couch after a stern talking to by Yoojung which included holding their share of snacks hostage until they, quote: “parked their asses on the couch”. A collective groan could be heard.
Woojin doesn’t get much time to appreciate the masterpiece of a movie as most of it was spent reciting famous lines and badly singing along to the songs. Of course, they let him handle the high notes which promptly broke his voice a couple of times, but fuck if he cared. If the booing from Jihoon meant anything, it was that he was doing his job.
What he didn’t expect was for Doyeon to have been recording his whole performance—now his phone was on fire from all the notifications from their group chat.
[ (21) 99LINE MORE LIKE 666LINE LMFAO]
[10:28pm] hyungseob: LOL WOOJIN WHY
[10:28pm] mina!: woojin is a mess fhjdkg
[10:28pm] mina!: wait are you guys having a party without us?!!?!?!?
[10:29pm] ddoyeon: it’s a double date~
[10:29pm] ddoyeon: you wouldn’t want to fifth wheel would you?
[10:29pm] mina!: oh god no
[10:30pm] ddoyeon: that’s what i thought
[10:30pm] Yeonjung: Don’t you guys have classes tomorrow?
[10:30pm] haknyeon: i cant stop la ughi ng HIS VOICE CRACK
[10:31pm] mina!: shh yeonjung...dont mention the forbidden c word
[10:31pm] Yeonjung: ...Anyways where are the others?
[10:31pm] ddoyeon: err...
[10:31pm] ddoyeon: i might’ve not....told them i was recording.....
[10:31pm] Yeonjung: Oh no
[10:32pm] yoodaeng: KIM DOYEON!!!
[10:32pm] ddoyeon: ghjkghfkjd
[10:32pm] ddoyeon: what’s wrong my yoodaengie~ <3
[10:32pm] yoodaeng: DONT YOU <3 ME
[10:33pm] yoodaeng: you had to include me dancing didnt you T_T
[10:33pm] ddoyeon: hey i filmed everyone
[10:33pm] yoodaeng: EXCEPT YOURSELF
[10:33pm] jihoon: doyeon is hereby exiled for exposing us
[10:33pm] ddoyeon: no pls
[ ddoyeon left. ]
[10:34pm] Yeonjung: Give her her phone back Jihoon
[10:34pm] jihoon: no
[10:36pm] woojin: this is doyeon i g rabbed wooj in s p hONE HELP ME
[10:36pm] Yeonjung: Oh my god this is a mess I’m going to sleep
[10:36pm] mina!: dont leave me alone with them
[10:42pm] hyungseob: aaaaaand shes gone
[ ddoyeon was added to the group. ]
[10:43pm] yoodaeng: there
[10:43pm] yoodaeng: now get out of the toilet and give woojins phone back
[10:43pm] woojin: not until jihoon gives me my phone back
[10:44pm] jihoon: i left it by the door ffs
[10:44pm] hyungseob: this is a great distraction from my assignment
[10:44pm] mina!: mood
[10:45pm] yoojung: im gonna confiscate everyones now phones goodbye
[10:45pm] mina!: lol gl
[10:46pm] haknyeon: tell woojin to drink tons of water for his throat!
“Tell me you didn’t look at any of my other messages,” Woojin groans as Doyeon finally emerges with his phone in hand. She had taken advantage of the chaos from Jihoon banishing her to grab it and lock herself in the toilet. Thankfully, Yoojung was familiar enough with the situation to negotiate with the phone-napper.
“I didn’t see your sexts with Jihoon if that’s what you’re wondering,” Doyeon smirks and manages to dodge Woojin’s cushion in time (how many damn cushions did he have ?).
“Remind me to never let you drink ever again,” Yoojung squints at Doyeon, smacking her on the arm lightly before retrieving Woojin’s phone. “Here.”
“Thank,” Woojin slurs, taking the device from Yoojung. He checks its contents just to be sure, but thankfully sees nothing disturbed. “There’s some...sensitive content in here.”
“Don’t call it that!” Jihoon gasps in horror.
“Wait, I was right?” Doyeon blinks, but is promptly dragged away by Yoojung.
“Yeah, we’re gonna go now!” Yoojung exclaims over the sound of her girlfriend’s protests. “Good luck tomorrow, Woojin. Right your wrongs and all that!”
And then they were gone, leaving the remaining two to stand there in silence.
“They didn’t even help clean up…” Jihoon mumbles under his breath but walks up to Woojin anyways. “They’re right though, we gotta be ready and all—mission impossible.” With a cheeky grin, he starts humming a tune.
“That’s the James Bond theme, dumbass,” Woojin scoffs. “Whatever, I’m too tired to—” he waves a hand at the mess. “—do all that.”
“Your place, your job,” Jihoon yawns and leaves for the bedroom before Woojin could protest.
A quick survey of the damage soaks even more fatigue into his old-man bones. The stress was still present even with all the screaming he did earlier—in fact, it was even more intense now that ‘go time’ was tomorrow.
He feels terrible. The one time he actually tried for a project and his own stupidity sabotages him—what a fitting end.
He knows Jihoon is good at these sort of things but he couldn’t be that good. Pulling something like a file swap off was only possible in movies.
But what did he have to lose at this point, right? (“Uh, maybe the rest of your grades?”)
“There’s water, and then there’s gay water. Which one are you gonna go for?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Jihoon has to stifle his laughter when Woojin snaps at him, not wanting to draw any unwanted attention. It’s D-day and they were sat at their typical seats in the hall, middle-left of the room as a compromise between a good student and a slacker. Woojin had his head on the table, resisting the urge to bash his skull straight into it to maybe put himself out of his misery. Of course, Jihoon is enjoying watching him squirm and decides to poke his cheek just as Professor Kim walks in.
“Do you think he’s seen it yet…?” Woojin whispers, too nervous to swat Jihoon’s finger away.
“Dunno,” Jihoon hums nudging his finger in harder. “Probably not considering he doesn’t look deeply traumatized.”
“He’s not—” Jihoon’s finger slips and stabs him on the nose. “Stop that, holy shit. He’s not going to get traumatized over a picture of Shrek.”
"I dunno about that," Jihoon muses, wiping his finger on Woojin's shirt. "I’ve seen some of the shit you save just to traumatize Yoojung. You're such a dick sometimes."
"Look who's speaking, asshole," Woojin snorts. "I'm not the one who started deepthroating a banana at lunch just to freak everyone out."
"You liked it."
"Not my point."
Jihoon cackles as Woojin rolls his eyes, but both their attentions are drawn towards the front of the class when Professor Kim finally speaks up.
"I'll assume everyone has submitted their assignments," the man raises an eyebrow at the lackluster response. "Remember this is worth 20% of your final grade."
"Of course, of course he reminds me!" Woojin whispers harshly into his hands as Jihoon stares on pitifully. "Fuck my life."
Even as the class begins and Jihoon starts paying attention, Woojin is left with hands frozen over his laptop (which was ironic because it was burning hot underneath them). There's a nervousness in the pit of his stomach and it's making focusing nigh impossible when he feels the world spin around him. Was he going to fail? Was he going to get kicked out? Was Professor Kim going to teleport behind him and end his life with a katana saying: “nothing personnel, kid”?
The hypotheticals get Woojin's mind racing and he feels Jihoon nudging him with his foot, urging him to focus—but instead, Woojin kicks back and they find themselves playing footsie, until one of them accidentally kicks the table and a loud bang sounds out in the hall. A silence falls on them as Professor Kim takes a moment to let them bask in their shame, but thankfully, he continues on soon after.
Woojin can feel his face burning, but there's nothing he can do at this point but pray for time to speed up so he could get some closure already. His eyes keep drifting towards Professor Kim's laptop and Jihoon gives his hand a little squeeze.
"It'll be okay, trust me," he whispers encouragingly.
"I'm going to throw up."
"...Ew"
Seconds, minutes, and then a whole hour passes and he thinks he's about to ascend to a higher plane of existence, but it finally ends somewhat anticlimactically with a bunch of people leaving almost immediately. Woojin would've loved to join them for the lunch rush, but now he was on a mission that he couldn't afford to fail.
"Let's go," Jihoon nods and makes his way towards the front of the room, a peppy hop in his step that Woojin squints at, but doesn't question. He calls out to Professor Kim and gets his attention easily thanks to being the oh-so perfect student, a teacher's pet if Woojin's ever seen one.
With a gulp to steel his nerves, Woojin takes advantage of the angle to move across the room and slide in behind the desk, finally just an arm's length away from the aforementioned laptop. This was it, the relic of a computer that held his future in its 100GB hard disk—get an upgrade already, damn.
He clenches his fist in preparation, and with an all too gentle hand, he lifts its lid—only to almost choke on his saliva when he sees a password lock on the screen. He swears he feels his dreams burst right there and then, but with a small, trembling movement, he swipes across the trackpad and moves the cursor to the 'password hint' button.
"Hint: i love you in dinosaur XD"
Woojin takes a moment to stare and truly take in the meaning of those words. Many thoughts run through his mind, but at the same time, he feels nothing as he reaches for the keyboard and types in: "rawrXD"
It works.
Woojin vows to never speak of this ever again.
With the laptop now unlocked, he navigates to the most obvious folder on the desktop named 'student projects', and finds his zip file still unopened. He would’ve breathed a sigh of relief if it weren’t for the level of stealthiness required of him.
Reaching into his pocket, Woojin rummages around the loose change for his flash drive—a glittery, hot pink mess gifted to him by Hyungseob awhile back because it “suited his personality”. Woojin never quite figured out what he meant by that, but hey, a gift’s a gift.
With as much care as someone with hands shaking at approximately 200BPM could have, he sticks the flash drive into the laptop to copy over his file, but almost bites down on his tongue when the laptop makes the signature USB connection sound at maybe around a thousand decibels. He feels his entire being start to disintegrate as his eyes dart over to where Jihoon and Professor Kim were, but the loud thud that sounds out within the millisecond catches him off guard.
“Oh, haha! Whoops, sorry about that!” Jihoon says at a volume louder than he should’ve, bending down to retrieve the book he had thrown at the ground reflexively. When Professor Kim turns away for a moment, Jihoon makes a violent gesture of cutting his own neck and Woojin ten seconds away from bursting into tears.
Woojin finally begins the transfer and he’s not even sure if the bar moving so slowly is due to his own fucked up perception of time, or that fact that this laptop is older than his grandma. His heart is thumping so loudly it sounds like the upstairs neighbour on a saturday night and he swears it’s going to just explode from his chest at this rate.
3, 2, 1…
1…
Why is it stuck — oh, there we go.
Woojin closes the window and sets everything back the way it was, making sure to mute the laptop before unplugging his flash drive this time (a thinking man’s move). He lowers the lid gingerly and then flashes Jihoon a thumbs up before ducking out the other door, making his escape.
It’s about a minute of being alone, but Jihoon finally manages to excuse himself and Woojin just about tackles him to the ground when he exits the lecture hall.
“I WAS GOING TO DIE—”
“There, there, you big baby,” Jihoon pats Woojin’s back comfortingly as the latter clings to him like a koala.
“I can’t believe we just did that—” Woojin whispers after a sufficient amount of hair ruffles and blows to his quickly diminishing pride.
“I told you it’d work,” Jihoon replies smugly with such an annoying smile on his lips that Woojin suddenly feels an innate need to it punch off (with his own lips).
“Okay, yeah—but like, how ,” Woojin gestures incredulously.
“I’m a god, that’s how.”
Woojin stares blankly at Jihoon, blinking slowly. “Y’know what? After all of this, I’m inclined to agree.”
Jihoon’s smirk only grows. “Took you long enough.”
There’s a pause as Woojin looks down at his feet, face unreadable, and he mumbles something almost inaudible when he finally looks back up at Jihoon:
“...Hey, so, anyways—I’m gonna faint now.”
“Wait what—”
jihoon [4:37pm]
yo
i just got the results back on my assignment
aced it
as expected
jihoon [4:38pm]
but thats not why im here
woojin [4:39pm]
u sure
jihoon [4:39pm]
stfu
you gonna tell me what you got for yours??
or you just gonna leave me anticipating
woojin [4:40pm]
o yeah ill go check now
jihoon [4:41pm]
what were you even doing if not waiting for results
woojin [4:41pm]
......playing games
jihoon [4:41pm]
without me? ;]
jihoon [4:47pm]
......
jihoon [4:51pm]
woojin?
jihoon [4:52pm]
i know that joke sucked but you dont have to ghost me like this
woojin [4:52pm]
...........
woojin [4:53pm]
jihoon
jihoon [4:53pm]
what
woojin [4:53pm]
i....failed......
jihoon [4:53pm]
wha
didnt you replace the file?????
woojin [4:54pm]
i did....
.....my project just sucked...
jihoon [4:55pm]
youre telling me
after all that
after everything we did
you still failed because
jihoon [4:56pm]
oh
oh my god
you
yoU SPENT ALL YOUR TIME PLAYING GAMES WITH DAEHWI DIDNT YOU
OH MY FUCKING GOD I SHOULDVE KNOWN
woojin [4:56pm]
i love you?
jihoon [4:56pm]
never speak to me ever again