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Minghao hates being interrupted from his sleep. Once it’s bedtime, it’s bedtime; there is no getting up, there is no reason to pull himself away from the blankets and the comfort of having more than enough pillows surrounding him, and absolutely no reason for him to be conscious in the middle of the night. When he wants to sleep, he wants to sleep. Undisturbed, uninterrupted, deep, peaceful sleep.
(Especially after dealing with the headache that is his Psychology 101 class and their less-than-adequate midterm grades this week, he needs it.)
He isn’t a particularly grumpy person by nature, but Minghao’s level of tolerance is near nonexistent when he’s tired and low on energy. When he feels someone’s hand shaking him awake, a prodding finger poking at his cheek, he growls lowly and turns arounds so that his back faces the perpetrator in his room.
“Go away.”
“No,” comes the voice, “Get up. Please, Hao?”
Minghao pulls the blanket over his head as he moves away from the hand on his arm. “Fuck off, I’m trying to sleep.”
“And I can’t sleep. Come on, it’s just this once. Help me out,” the voice lets out a whine at the end. Minghao catches wind of it and—god, he really doesn’t want to get out of bed right now, but the sound of that whine hits him more than he wants to admit.
“Go away,” Minghao huffs, shoving away the other’s hand as he begins to sit up in his bed. Reaching for his spectacles on the bedside table, it takes him a second to put them on correctly while groggy.
It’s only now that he can see the face of his night time interruption. Seokmin’s face comes into focus as he blinks once to get the sleep away, twice to make sure that this is actually happening because every part of his body wants this to be a dream. The boy with the sharp nose and high cheekbones smiles warmly, his eyes closed.
So much for sleep.
“Now what?”
“Well,” Seokmin shrugs, “I’m hungry. Let’s go to the kitchen?”
Minghao glances at his clock. “Seok, it’s 4 in the morning…”
“Yeah, and?” Taking his hand in his, Seokmin pulls Minghao up from the bed and immediately tugs him along out the bedroom. They shuffle through the hallway to get to the kitchen, passing the night lights with Christmas designs lighting their way.
It’s colder in the apartment than it is in his bedroom. Minghao shivers a bit as he promptly sits down at the table. He makes himself comfortable, propping his arm up on the table and lets his chin rest in the upturned palm of his hand. He watches Seokmin wander in the kitchenette, finding a bowl and spoon.
“Cereal?” he raises an eyebrow, “you can’t be having all that sugar this time of night.”
“What are you, my mom?” Seokmin chuckles. He pulls a box out of a cabinet.
“Just watching you is going to give me cavities,” Minghao grimaces, “that entire box is just the Lucky Charms marshmallows.”
“It’s the best part! Why waste my time on the actual cereal bits?”
Minghao rolls his eyes. “When you get a cavity and have to be driven to the dentist, don’t come barking up my tree.”
Seokmin sits down across from him, two bowls in his hands. One gets set down in front of himself, and the other he leaves in front of Minghao. It’s a bowl of Grape Nuts with enough milk to just cover the surface of the cereal… just how he likes it.
“I’m not hungry.”
“But I didn’t want to eat alone.”
As Seokmin shovels the marshmallows and milk into his mouth spoonful by spoonful, Minghao uses his spoon to swirl the cereal around in the milk, slowly pressing the morsels into the liquid. He doesn’t eat at this time of night—especially not cereal. Grape Nuts aren’t exactly sweet, and they won’t give him cavities like the way Seokmin’s marshmallows will, but it’s still a strange thought to have.
But if he doesn’t eat them soon, they will get soggy in the milk. So begrudgingly Minghao takes a spoonful into his mouth. It’d be a waste otherwise. Not like Grape Nuts ever do him wrong, anyway. In contrast to the pig across the table, he has taste.
He isn’t even halfway done when he looks up at Seokmin, already pouring himself a second bowl at the table.
“Why the fuck are we doing this?” Minghao asks, swallows the cereal in his mouth.
“Doing what?”
“This—“ he gestures to where they’re sitting, at the bowls of cereal between them, the box of Lucky Charms marshmallows, and the gallon of milk that is nearly finished ( god , he just bought that the other day) while keeping his gaze on Seokmin, “why are we doing this?”
Stopping what he’s doing, the box of marshmallows in one hand and the milk gallon in the other, Seokmin looks up from his bowl and smiles widely, from ear to ear, eyes closed in crescents.
“I just wanted a reason to be with you.”
It’s 5:15am by the time Minghao’s body collapses onto his bed. His spectacles get jostled when he lands, but he can’t be bothered to fix them or take them off as he stares at the ceiling. The sun has already started to peak above the horizon and behind the neighboring apartment buildings outside, and remembering that he has to attend class in just two hours makes him groan at the thought.
There’s still time to get some sleep in. He lifts his legs up so that he can bring the blankets up to his chest, curling up on his side with an arm under his head. It’d be hard to get any good rest, but better some than none at all.
Minghao closes his eyes. He waits for sleep to come.
—it doesn’t.
Instead, Minghao spends the next hour and forty five minutes laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He can remember Seokmin’s closed eye smile clearly, the soft spoken words ringing in his ears.
“I just wanted a reason to be with you.”
“God,” Minghao throws an arm over his eyes, blocking the sunlight out of his face, “what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
For him to understand, Minghao tries to find the logical reasoning behind Seokmin’s words. There’s always a reason for something; nothing happens out of pure coincidence, not in his book anyway. Minghao contemplates the reasons.
tI’s likely that Seokmin’s just trying to mess with him. This is the most obvious and natural conclusion to come to. Considering his past of constantly pulling pranks with Seungkwan and Hoshi, Minghao wouldn’t be surprised if this is just another one of their jokes.
On the other hand, why would Seokmin say he wanted a reason to be around him? They’re roommates, first of all, they see each other almost constantly. Unlike other arrangements, they could tolerate each other enough to get along and share things between each other. Minghao could even say that they only became friends because of their living arrangements. Otherwise, he’s not so sure he would have ever approached Seokmin on his own.
They wake up in the mornings and see each other on the way to the bathroom, they eat breakfast together in the same places, and on some days they even go to classes together. Seokmin doesn’t need to make up a reason for them to see each other when they already do plenty of that.
Thinking about it keeps him in bed ten minutes past his alarm. Minghao sits up and stares groggily into space. It’s time to get ready for class. He can’t spend any more time thinking about why Seokmin said what he did.
If anything, he’s just overthinking this whole thing. Minghao stands up from his bed, stretches his arms over his head and scratches his side. Time to get ready.
Just like the first time, Minghao finally falls into deep sleep when he’s jostled awake by Seokmin’s insistent shaking. He pulls away, moving to the edge of his bed that meets the wall. Seokmin, sitting at the edge of the bed, inches closer and rests his hand where he thinks Minghao’s arm is.
“Not again,” Minghao warns sternly, sleep laced in his voice. He’d just fallen asleep…
“Please?”
“I just fell asleep.”
“Let’s go eat some cereal, Hao.”
Minghao hears the low whine in Seokmin’s voice. Consider it a weakness of his—once he uses puppy dog eyes and drops the last of his syllables into a small whine, Minghao’s as sure as dong for. He wants to resist. So bad.
“Hao.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
This time Minghao leads them into the kitchen.
Seokmin grabs the bowls from one of the cabinets while Minghao is in charge of bringing the boxes of cereal to the table. He sifts through the cabinet where they normally store the boxes. After a moment of shuffling, he pauses.
“Seokmin.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re out of cereal.”
“… What? Really?”
There’s a bit of shuffling. Minghao’s pressed up against the counter as Seokmin comes up from behind, leaning into him as he peers into the cabinet over his shoulder. He’s highly aware of Seokmin’s front pressed against his back, the way Seokmin’s close enough to rest his chin on his shoulder if he really wanted to, the way Seokmin is so close and—
in an instant, is a great distance’s away as he steps back and nods.
“Looks like we are!”
Closing the cabinet door, Minghao begins to walk towards the hallway. “I’m going to sleep then.”
“Hold up, wait—“
Seokmin grabs his arm again. Minghao stops mid-step. This is just like the first time. Following his arm up to his face, Minghao raises an eyebrow at the smile on Seokmin’s lips.
“Let’s go to the store! Why let this stop us now?” Seokmin suggests, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. His eyes glimmer in the bright kitchen lights, a hint of moonlight shining in them.
“Because,” Minghao starts, trying to pull away from Seokmin’s hand, “it’s 2am and I’m not about to leave the house just for cereal.”
“We’re already awake and we’re half way there—why not just commit all the way?”
It’s a mess of Seokmin rushing to the door and having his shoes on before Minghao can even grab his cardigan from his bedroom, something soft and cozy to keep him warm for the short walk down the street and around the corner to the convenience store.
Minghao doesn’t notice Seokmin’s gaze on him until he looks up, fingers tucked into the back of his shoe to slip them onto his feet. He quirks an eyebrow, a look that asks Seokmin ‘ what are you looking at?’ without saying anything.
Seokmin grins. He opens the door and lets Minghao step out first.
The cold winter air is refreshing after being inside all day. Minghao shudders as a breeze passes, slowly getting used to the drop in temperature. He can feel the familiar pricks in his hands from how cold it is. The convenience store isn’t too far away. They’ll go in, get their cereal, and go right back home. This is an easy 15-20 minute errand to run, even if it is 2am and he’d rather be in bed spending these 20 minutes asleep.
“How about you? Is it hard for you to sleep because of me too? If you keep making my heart flutter, what do I do?”
Seokmin sings a muffled tune beside him, looking goofy with a pompom beanie on his head and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, covering part of his mouth. Though he’d rather listen to the quiet, calming sounds of night life in their neighborhood (crickets chirping, the sound of cars driving down the street in the neighborhood over, the faint sound of their shoes kicking stray stones away), Minghao is content with hearing Seokmin’s melody above it all.
They enter the convenience store and Minghao immediately takes off to the aisle with cereal. He’s looking around for the brands that he needs, finds that there are only regular Lucky Charms and the marshmallows kept separate are no where to be seen. Whatever, Seokmin will have to deal with it.
As he grabs a box of frosted flakes, disappointed that Grape Nuts or Honey Bunches of Oats with Strawberries aren’t anywhere to be seen, he goes to find his roommate. Seokmin should have followed him straight to the cereal aisle, shouldn’t he?
“Hey,” Minghao calls out, “Lee Seokmin. Where are you?”
“Hao!”
His cheery roommate pops up from behind a snack display around the corner. He’s smiling brightly, and Minghao opens his mouth to tell him that he’s got the cereal, it’s time to go, but notices the basket hanging at the bend of Seokmin’s arm.
It’s full of snacks and junk food.
“…What is that.”
“It’s exactly what you think it is!” Seokmin grabs a bag or two of the snacks off of the display and dumps them into his basket. It’s nearly overfilling now—any more and it’d spill over. “Let’s just make a night out of it!”
“If you think I’m staying up to eat snacks with you, you’re delusional.”
“I don’t think it,” he walks past Minghao to get to the refrigerated drinks behind him, “I know it.”
Minghao’s brows knit together, turned up as he looks at the other boy incredulously. “What does that mean?”
“You woke up to have cereal with me, and even though we ran out you still came with me to the store. You really could have just gone back to bed, you know?”
Seokmin’s back is turned to him. Minghao can’t see his face at all, but a part of him just knows that the normally wide grin on his face is softer now. A little more sincere, a little warmer. No, Minghao does not need to see Seokmin’s face to know this—somehow he just feels it, somewhere deep inside of him. Like an instinct.
“You’re a lot kinder than you think,” Seokmin says quietly enough that only Minghao can hear, words that are only meant to be shared with him and him only, “That’s what I like about you.”
Their schedules don’t align very often. Minghao had class from the morning til afternoon, and with the holidays rolling around closer and closer, Seokmin had been caught up in rehearsal for the winter musical. For the most part, Seokmin hasn’t been around enough and Minghao has been preoccupying himself with his work to clearly think about every 4am cereal incident they’ve had in the past month.
And again today, he keeps focused on the tasks at hand: grading the latest two assignments for his class, and working on his own thesis paper for his graduate program. Minghao fills his time in with schoolwork.
The stacks of papers that need to be graded is set off to the side. As he opens up his laptop, he glances at the clock to his right. 1:57am. He should have eaten dinner hours ago, but now it’s past midnight and—he knows he shouldn’t eat anything too late into the night. As hungry as he is, Minghao is also just as disciplined.
His stomach growls. Eat something.
Minghao steps away from his desk, bracing himself for the bright fluorescent lights that line the hallway ceiling. He’ll never get used to that, no matter how long he’s lived in this apartment. Grumbling to himself about how his eyes hurt, he makes his way to the kitchen.
“You’re still up?”
At the kitchen table, Seokmin’s sitting crossed legged with a bowl of cereal in his hands, held up to his mouth so he can shovel down whatever it is he’s eating. Getting closer to the table, Minghao isn’t surprised at what he sees: a bowl of Lucky Charms marshmallows.
Seokmin licks his lips to get the milk off of them, grinning widely as Minghao passes him to get to the stove. “I needed a snack.”
He turns the stove on to let a kettle of water come to a boil. “You didn’t come wake me up this time,” Minghao comments offhandedly.
“Just felt like—I don’t know,” Seokmin starts, pausing short to push the last of the marshmallows around in his bowl, “you seemed kinda busy with your work, Hao, thought I should let you focus and all.”
“Ah… Thanks, I guess.”
“How’s that paper going, anyway?”
“I didn’t even start it yet,” Minghao lets out a tired sigh, long and drawn out due to the exhaustion and stress that gets added to his shoulders at the mention of his thesis, “I just finished grading those kids’ papers.”
“It took you that long?” Seokmin looks up from his cereal, eyes wide, “Were they that bad?”
Minghao nods. The kettle begins to whistle lowly.
Laughing quietly, Seokmin goes back to eating his marshmallows. “Sounds rough. You deserve a break.”
“It’s such a drag. If I could just focus on one or the other, I’d be doing a better job.”
As the kettle’s whistle starts to bend in pitch, reaching an octave higher now that the water is at a rolling boil, Minghao turns off the stove and grabs his mug from the cabinet above his head. Tonight’s choice of tea is Chai, with a bit of honey and a dash of warmed milk.
“You’re doing the best you can, Hao,” his roommate reassures him. Minghao turns his back to the counter and leans against it, folding his arms across his chest. He has to wait three minutes for the tea to steep.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” Minghao decides on saying. He’s not sure how to handle taking the reassurance from Seokmin, who is normally ready on his hands and knees to make sure his friends know that their hard work is recognized and appreciated. He knows he means well—always does, because Seokmin doesn’t have an ill-intentioned bone in his body—but still can’t take it to heart. “I don’t know, Seok, sometimes ‘enough’ isn’t… enough.”
He wants to be comforted by Seokmin’s words—but words, Minghao realizes, aren’t enough for him to truly feel that reassurance.
There’s a quiet moment in the kitchen. The kettle is no longer on the stove trying to boil the water inside, they stop talking, Seokmin has stopped eating his cereal, and Minghao quietly waits for his tea. Now it’s awkward.
Minghao isn’t sure what to say. Maybe it’s best to leave quietly once the tea is finished.
A timer on the stovetop goes off. The beeping is the only sound that cuts through the silence. Minghao turns it off. He pours the teaspoon of honey into his tea and then the milk. It’s time to hide in his room again; that thesis isn’t going to write itself. He passes the kitchen table without another word, holding his tea mug in one hand and lets his free hand rest in the pocket of his joggers.
Something stops him. Minghao purses his lips together, concerned about spilling his tea over his hand. Looking down, he finds Seokmin’s hand on his arm, stopping him. His shoulders tense.
He looks at Seokmin.
“Hey,” the other boy calls out to him gently, in a tone of voice much quieter than his usual volume. Minghao feels Seokmin’s grasp tighten just the slightest. “Take it easy, and don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing great, Minghao. You’re just fine.”
And then Seokmin lets go of him.
His thesis is due at the end of the semester, just a mere two weeks away from today. Minghao opens his eyes slowly, picks up his phone from his bedside table and tries not to go blind looking at his screen. It’s half past 7 on a Saturday morning. By this time, the sun is already trying to high up in the sky and glaring sun rays through his window. He wakes up with an odd feeling in his stomach, but unsure of what it is. He groans, and chalks it up to the slight nausea that comes with waking up in the early morning.
Minghao turns over in his bed, covering his whole body with the blanket. Anything to get the sun away at this point. It’s too early to be awake on a weekend, but this is the time he wakes up on the weekdays normally—his body is used to it, and without needing an alarm to wake him up, he finds it difficult to fall back asleep.
Deciding that it wouldn’t matter if he stayed in bed an extra five minutes or an extra fifteen, Minghao swings his legs over the edge of his bed to get up.
He prefers savory breakfast to sweet—in contrast to Seokmin’s constant consumption of Lucky Charms marshmallows and pancakes with an ocean of maple syrup dumped all over top of it, Minghao enjoys an omelette with toast, or maybe he’ll go out of his way to make kimchi stew with a side of boiled pork, even a salad to go with it. It’s very rare that he actually picks up his box of Grape Nuts or frosted flakes or whatever.
Today is one of those days he’s craving cereal.
Except.
“… Did we run out of cereal?”
Minghao is face-to-face with an empty cabinet, save for a bag of Halloween candy that’s been sitting there even before Halloween ever happened this year. He can’t really believe that they ran out of cereal again, but considering how it’s been Seokmin’s staple food for the past month… He can.
Just when he’s craving it, too—this really is his luck. Frustrated, he slides a hand into his pocket and uses the other to rub the back of his neck, trying to think of what to do. He could easily start a pot of rice and begin to make kimchi stew like he normally would, but the craving he has for cereal just won’t go away.
Minghao moves before he really thinks about it too hard; soon, he’s in front of Seokmin’s door, turning the knob so he can step through and let himself in.
Seokmin doesn’t wake up this early. He’s fast asleep, curled up in a ball with a pillow between his legs and an arm hanging half way off his bed. He’s snoring lightly, too, the kind of snoring that sounds like heavy breathing; Minghao grimaces at first, noting the way Seokmin’s mouth hangs open as he sleeps
He’s even drooling a little bit. Alright, Seokmin. Alright.
“Wake up, you big oaf.” Minghao pokes Seokmin’s body with his leg, lets his toes wiggle into his side, “We need to go out.”
“It’s… It’s too early…” Seokmin rolls over in a single motion, taking the blankets with him and buries himself into a burrito.
Oh no. None of this. If Seokmin gets to drag his ass out of bed at 4am to get cereal, he deserves to get his just desserts. Minghao digs his foot into his side again.
“We’re going to the convenience store,” he says a final time, sternly, brings his foot down to replace it with his hand on Seokmin’s arm and pulls him out.
Shuffling around his room, Minghao helps Seokmin get dressed for the morning winter weather. He tosses a hoodie for him to tug over his t-shirt, roughly stuffs his head into a winter hat where the sides come down to cover his ears, makes him put on his boots because there’s fresh snow on the ground and he knows Seokmin hates it when his feet are cold.
Seokmin is still half asleep when they leave the apartment. Minghao leads him by the hand.
“Your hand’s warm,” Seokmin says at the end of a yawn, covering his mouth with his free hand, tucked away in the long sleeves of his jacket. He chuckles at the thought, “or maybe they’re just really sweaty.”
“Just—shut up and keep holding on,” Minghao retorts quickly, ignoring the sleepy grin on Seokmin’s face, makes up an excuse for himself, “don’t want you running into any trees or something.”
Seokmin tightens his grasp, mumbles yeah yeah, whatever you say Hao. They continue on to the convenience store, snow crunching underneath their feet, the winter air kissing their cheeks, hand in hand.
The convenience store run is fast. Minghao goes in with Seokmin following close behind, still tugging him by the hand. They go to the cereal, pick up a box and he pays for it wordlessly. There are no other snacks, no other treats, nothing. Minghao just wants to get home and eat his damn cereal.
“Hao—” Seokmin starts. He stumbles a bit as he tries to keep up with Minghao’s brisk pace, clutching onto his hand and beginning to fall in step beside him. “Hao, you didn’t even grab the right cereal.”
“I did.”
“But Lucky Charms are…”
“I wanted them.”
“Oh.”
The way back home is quieter than the way to the store. Seokmin doesn’t hum, doesn’t try to say anything. Minghao tries not to bring up the fact that he’s only craving Lucky Charms right now, so badly that he might even pick away the cereal bits and only eat the marshmallows; doesn’t let himself think much about the fact that his fingers are tied up with Seokmin’s, how he wishes things hadn’t felt so oddly complicated when it comes to Seokmin and cereal.
“So… craving, huh?”
Minghao keeps his face forward as they keep walking. “Yeah, a craving.”
“Wonder where that came from.” There’s a light joking tone in Seokmin’s voice.
“Gee,” Minghao rolls his eyes, “I wonder.”
What he won’t tell Seokmin is the truth: the fact that his craving for Lucky Charms is only because Seokmin eats them day in and out; the fact that Seokmin has woken him up at 4am more than a dozen times over just because he has cereal cravings; the fact that despite everything he does to forget about it, Minghao still remembers what Seokmin said the first night.
They round the corner and their apartment comes into view. Minghao looks up at where their windows are. The paper-cut snowflakes that Mingyu and Seungkwan made and gifted them are still taped up.
“Did you mean what you said that day?” Minghao keeps his eyes trained on their apartment.
Seokmin turns his head. “Huh?”
“About wanting a reason to be with me. Did you mean that?”
He’s always wondered why Seokmin said that. It may have not been at the forefront of his mind, but in quiet moments where he finally has time to breathe and pull away from school and work, he thinks about it. Seokmin has never brought it up again after that, either, which leaves Minghao in even more confusion.
He could knock it off as just a one time thing, but it seems much harder to let go of that way. Minghao just needs an answer.
They stop at the foot of their building’s gate. Minghao turns to him. He waits for Seokmin to speak up, give him the closure he needs.
“I did,” the other boy eases his weight onto one foot, leaning away from Minghao to take a good look at his face. There’s still a bit of sleepiness that makes its way through Seokmin’s voice; a soothing sound amidst birds chirping in the early morning and the snow under their shoes. Maybe it’s soothing to him because Seokmin is fulfilling his wishful thinking. Like a weight off his chest. A fresh breath of air.
Minghao lets himself smile. Seokmin smiles back at him.
Seokmin huddles in the corner seat of their kitchen table, shivering from how cold their apartment is. There’s a bowl in front of him with only the soggy remnants of the cereal part of Lucky Charms floating in the milk. Minghao is contently eating everything in his bowl—marshmallows and cereal and milk—while holding onto Seokmin’s hand to keep him from shaking too much.
“I can’t believe you eat this all the time.” He can feel the sugar coating his teeth, might even be able to pinpoint exactly where his cavities could start forming if he eats this more than once in a blue moon.
“It’s my favorite,” Seokmin grins through chattering teeth, “will it be yours, too?”
Minghao snorts, “no way.”
If anything, Lucky Charms are his new guilty pleasure, meant for him to share with Seokmin at 4am. It’s the only time he’ll want to eat them after this.
(“So can I have seconds?” Seokmin asks. He’s already reaching for the box when Minghao stops him, a quick hand on his wrist.
“I paid for it,” his tone is jokingly stern as he waves Seokmin's hand away, “back off.”
“Come on, please? ”
“Go buy your own box, I'm not sharing my stash.”)