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Namjoon was really lucky to have gotten into the college he did. It had a great reputation, his family knew alumni, and it was generally just… perfect. He had no problems aside from the average with the entrance exam, and moving in was easy enough, but now…
Well, now he was all alone.
It was a pretty long train ride to anywhere near the sea, or at least with his schedule it was a lot of time he should be using in study hall, or class, or doing homework, but it had always been one of his favorite places to go and relax. There were all manner of fish and critters running around on the beach that always made his heart flutter, and the way the waves would crash and roll in and out always set his mind at ease.
He didn’t have a roommate to talk to these things about, either. His dorm was typical, small, and about the size of a closet. He had a couple of square feet in between the end of his bed and the wall, maybe. There were some posters on the wall, and he was lucky to have one large window about the size of his external wall. A desk. That was… about it.
Because of the size of their dorms, there were a lot of things that were banned. For one, any extra bookcases. Not that they’d have room to put them anywhere, but apparently someone had tried. Because of this, a lot of Namjoon’s books sat under his bed in a shallow plastic box with wheels, organized meticulously to keep them from getting hurt. Secondly, he had to be careful with what went under his bed, because having too much underneath it (“clutter” was disallowed, though the definition of that was really, really, really ambiguous) was also a pretty big infraction. You were only allowed to put posters on a specific wall, and they had to have at least an inch between them, and no sticky tack was to be used. You also couldn’t punch holes in the walls, so it was basically that Namjoon was either allowed to tape them and risk damaging them, or frame them and hang them with those stupid temporary hooks. He did that, because it looked nicer.
He took care of his things, really. He took care of his dorm. He always made his bed like he was supposed to, and his desk was only cluttered when he was attempting to do three homework assignments at once. Of course, he was, again, still lonely.
Among the myriad of things allowed, naturally cats and dogs were on the list. Snakes, tarantulas, it had a whole list in the pamphlet -- no, novel -- he was given when he moved in. Since receiving it, he’d looked through it at least once a week, just to double-check he wasn’t breaking any rules. And wouldn’t you know, during one of his weekly (now becoming bi-weekly-ish, since his schedule was packed and he was pretty sure he knew it well enough by now) revisions, he noticed it.
“It” was actually the fact that he noticed a lack of it.
Right there under the pets section, where it talked about all the tanked animals you couldn’t keep, well… it didn’t say “crabs”. Not anywhere.
So Namjoon thought about it for a few days. And the conclusion that he came to was that he most certainly was going to go to the pet store, buy an aquarium, and sand, and bowls, and a heat lamp and do research and see whatever else he needed, and he was going to buy crabs. Probably hermit crabs. Those seemed easiest. His research later that week told him that hermit crabs are social animals, and were not really that “easy” to care for. So he checked his finances and figured three was a good number. Four might have been too many, and as much as everyone liked to have friends, he figured, space was important, too.
When he brought home the big glass aquarium was when the problems started. Previously, he’d bought a small, small (small) side table that was big enough to house the aquarium in the free space he had, and he sat it by the window to prepare. That had seemed fine with the RA, one very funny, very cute, fun-loving but rule-bound Kim Seokjin. He did inspections frequently and randomly, and he did them individually. He’d also stick his head in if he ever suspected something was off, which he often did. Part of Namjoon wondered if it was just because Seokjin liked causing trouble, or reveled in the exasperated/anxious faces of the already overworked students. Actually, all of him thought that.
Namjoon had never been the type to indulge troublemakers, and besides, he was well within his rights despite knowing he was pushing it, just a little. But they were crabs. They didn’t make noise or mess, and if they got out they weren’t a danger. So there was no problem.
Kim Seokjin didn’t seem to agree. Namjoon came home one afternoon after his classes to see his door already open, with Seokjin standing there, hands on his hips and looking down at the glass aquarium where three little hermit crabs fumbled over each other and dragged their little spiralled shells through the sand. Adorable. But Seokjin didn’t seem endeared at all.
He had a deep frown on his face, which he rose to meet Namjoon’s tired, but smiling expression as he approached.
“Kim Namjoon-ssi,” he started, pointing his pen at the aquarium before tapping it on his clipboard. “You know… that pets aren’t allowed, correct?”
“Actually, only specific animals are banned.” This caused his frown to deepen. “Can I come in?” It really wasn’t a two-people room. Seokjin knew this.
“I’m not stopping you. Anyway, you plan to just stand there and tell me that these are somehow allowed? I don’t think so, Kim Nam-crazy-freshman-Joon.”
“They are.” He took off his backpack and rooted around for the rulebook, trying his best to refrain from laughing at Seokjin’s expression which was a mix of anger, frustration, and pure confusion. He pulled out the pamphlet and flipped to the page, bookmarked neatly with a colored sticky tab, and read off the list.
As he went further and further down, and no hermit crabs were listed, Seokjin’s eyebrows raised higher and higher.
“That can’t be right…” he said, opening his own copy. Of course, it was. “It’s not a misprint?”
“No. They just haven’t disallowed them, I guess.” Namjoon said, taking a few steps into his room despite the tight space. “Anyway, this is Daisy, this is Penny, and this is Betty.” He smiled as he introduced each one of them, hoping maybe they would catch Seokjin’s heart and he’d go easy on him.
“This is ridiculous. They’re… they’re crabs. They smell bad!”
“They do not.”
“I--” He flipped through the pages in the pets section once more, before sighing and laughing. “I-- you’re right…” He shoved the book back under the clip on his clipboard and tucked it under his arm. “Namjoon-ssi, you’re entirely right. And… I respect that. They told me you were smart.” Namjoon had to laugh at that as well, ducking his head.
“That I- who?”
“Other students. I guess some of them have class with you. And… from what I hear, you’re a really good guy. So… don’t worry about it. You’re right, there’s nothing in the rules against having them, and… you really seem to like them.” So his plan had worked. He could feel his eyes lighting up with the smile that grew on his face. “So I’ll admit defeat today.” With that, a small, amused smile still on his face, he started to shuffle out past him.
After that, things were a little quieter. However, he noticed that he was undergoing a lot more room checks. Maybe, he thought, Seokjin was being harder on him to make up for the technicality. That thought dissipated when he found Seokjin cooing at his crabs in the middle of an inspection one day.
“Kim Seokjin-ssi, what… are you doing?” Seokjin snapped up, eyes wide.
“Oh, I- your room was the third stop down my list, and I just…” He looked down at the aquarium and then back up. “They’re not so creepy once you get to really look at them, right? They’re kind of cute. They remind me of my sugar gliders back home. Odeng and Eomuk... I miss them sometimes, but I see them on breaks. I like these crabs, though.”
“They’re nice. They let you hold them,” Namjoon said, smiling. He saw Jin shudder just a little.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
“Ah, that’s fine. They’re not like furry animals, they don’t need to be pet all the time. But they’re nice.” He came in and sat his backpack on his desk chair, then toed off his shoes and sat criss-crossed on the bed.
“Their names, they were uh… Moni?” Namjoon nodded. “And Rachel, and Pebble?”
“Phoebe. They're names from the show F.R.I.E.N.D.S.”
“I remember that show… Those are good names.” Namjoon smiled, thin and broad and proud. A few beats passed before Seokjin clipped his pen to his board and took a deep breath, like a sigh, but softer. “Namjoon-ah,” he started, snapping Namjoon’s attention away from his pets where they were still bumbling around, shells knocking together making adorable clicks and clonks every once in a while. “Namjoon-ah, feel free to tell me if this is out of line, but… do you want to have dinner sometime? Or coffee? I know your schedule is busy, so there’s no rush, I just-”
“Sure.” His smile widened even further, squeezing his eyes, and he nodded his head. Absolutely. Why not? He needed friends (friends, at least, at least , he guessed), and Seokjin was so beautiful, and let him get away with the freaking hermit crabs. Seokjin looked a little surprised at his lack of hesitation.
“You know I’m asking you out , right?”
“Yep.”
“On… a date?”
“I do. And it sounds great.”
“Oh…” And then Seokjin broke into a grin as well, smiling so hard that his cheeks turned pink. “Great.”
Namjoon would have never thought that hermit crabs could stop his loneliness by attracting cute, strict(ish) RAs, but nobody saw him complaining.