Work Text:
One good thing about being in a friend group of STEM majors is this: no matter the day, the time, or the location, there will always be a little study cult.
It’s Sunday, and Mark finds himself up to his eyeballs in binders, textbooks, highlighters, and an eight-page essay on moral conflict from a philosopher whose name he can’t pronounce to save his life. The essay is due Wednesday and requires at least 1,500 words, and so far all Mark got down is his name, the title, and a hook for a grand total of 23 words. He has a presentation tomorrow that he totally didn’t prepare for, a section of online problems for sociology due by midnight tonight, and a microbiology exam on Friday.
In short, he’s pretty much fucked ‘til next week.
On the bright side, he’s not alone.
Across the room, Renjun is typing furiously away at his laptop, brows scrunched in focus and dark bags hanging under his eyes from at least two days of no sleep. The neuroscience major looks about two seconds away from murdering someone, and if that isn’t Renjun’s default facial expression, Mark might be a little worried. There’s a small collection of coffee cans next to Renjun’s laptop, and Mark watches in both awe and disgust as Renjun picks up one of the many opened cans and chugs it down.
Next to him, Donghyuck lounges leisurely with a textbook propped open against his bent knee and a highlighter dangling between his fingers as his other hand occupies itself with scrolling through something on his phone. Mark wonders if the younger boy actually got his work done already or is just messing around until the last minute like he usually does. He’s willing to put his money on the latter. Donghyuck never gets his homework done early.
For the most part, the dorm study room is quiet, save for the rhythmic taps of fingers on keyboards and Donghyuck’s gentle humming. Mark feels his mind slowly falling into his meticulous study zone the longer he toils through his notes and books, fingers deftly typing up more and more words until he’s almost got two whole pages done for his essay. It’s not nearly as daunting when he actually gets into focus, the words coming easily to him as he passionately bullshits his way through the paper.
There’s a loud clank from behind him, and Mark doesn’t even need to turn his head to know that Renjun just polished off another can of coffee. Deep down, he knows that he should probably stop Renjun before he drinks himself into another two days of no sleep, but Mark also has a sense of self-preservation, and Renjun looks ready to snap.
It’s not a hard decision to make. Mark turns back to his work and ignores his friend duties temporarily because he kind of needs to be alive to hand in his paper, take his exam, and give his presentation this week.
He has no idea how much time has passed, but there’s at least two more clanks and another page and a half written for his paper when the door to the study room suddenly bursts open, scaring Mark out of his concentration zone.
“Jesus!”
“Not my name, but hey!” Lucas greets, grinning from ear to ear as he strolls in, pausing only to give Mark a quick peck on the cheek. “Look! I got a baguette!” He holds up the long bread in his hands like some sort of trophy, the smile never leaving his face as all the other occupants in the room turn to look at him.
Donghyuck arches a brow curiously. “Why did you just go and buy a baguette?”
Lucas laughs, setting down his bag on the empty seat next to Mark. “Well, I saw it at the school market, and I thought what the hell, y’know? So if you’re hungry, just take a bite or whatever.”
“Wait, what?” Renjun lifts his head from his textbook, glaring at both Donghyuck and Lucas through his glasses. “That’ll make a mess. Don’t you have something to cut the bread with?”
“Nope.”
“And no butter, jam, or anything?”
“Uh...no,” Lucas admits sheepishly. “I didn’t really think this through.”
“So lemme get this straight,” Renjun says, voice deceitfully calm as he carefully closes his laptop and pushes it aside. “You went to the school market, saw a baguette, decided to buy it, and came all the way here with nothing to cut the thing with and no condiments.”
“Er...nope.”
Renjun arches a brow, slowly standing up and rounding the table to face Lucas. “So no butter or jam?” he asks, head tilted back to look at the taller boy.
“No butter or jam,” Lucas recounts, holding up the bread in his hand. “But hey, I got a baguette!”
It happens faster than Mark or anyone can ever anticipate. In one fell swoop, Renjun snatches the baguette out of Lucas’s hold and swings it like a baseball bat at the taller’s face.
The resounding CRACK! is probably loud enough to be heard across campus.
“If there ain’t no butter, no jam, and no fucking knife to cut the motherfucker with, WHAT’S THE FUCKING POINT?!” Renjun yells. His entire body is shaking, and it’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s from too much caffeine, stress, or just pure rage. Knowing him, though, Mark’s betting that it’s a combination of all three. Renjun has never been good at keeping his temper in check. Especially if he hasn’t slept in days and has a massive research report due soon.
Lucas sits up from his place on the floor and rubs his reddening cheek, looking utterly wounded . “But it’s bread,” he whines. “It’s edible.”
“Yeah, if we can even break it apart to begin with,” Renjun snaps. “How the fuck are we supposed to eat this? Bite into it like a bunch of heathens?”
“I mean, we can try tearing it apart.”
“Or I can try shoving this up your ass.”
Lucas shrugs. “I mean, I’ve taken things up my ass before—”
WHAM!
At this moment, Mark would very much like to save his roommate, but he also really doesn’t want to be the next person Renjun knocks out with a giant breadstick.
“Okay, okay, can we all just put down the bread and chill?” Mark says calmly, waving his hands at Renjun. “Injunnie, I get that you’re hangry and all, but please, put the baguette down.”
Renjun looks down at the bread in his hands and back up at Mark. “No. My bread.”
"Technically,” Lucas drawls from where he’s sprawled out on the floor. “I paid for it. It’s my bread.”
Mark’s eyes blow wide as Renjun’s eye twitches before turning around and raising the baguette over his head. “Injunnie NO—”
BAM!
“Injunnie!” Mark exclaims in horror, dropping to his knees beside Lucas. “Why?!”
“What was that for?” Lucas wails, holding onto his reddening forehead. Mark never knew a baguette can do so much damage. He can almost see a bruise starting to form from underneath Lucas’s fingers.
“You’re so fucking infuriating, Lucas Wong!” Renjun screams. “What the fuck are we even gonna do with this fucking bread, huh? WHAT?!”
“I don’t know, Injunnie, EAT IT?!”
Mark startles as Renjun lifts the bread again. “Injunnie, wait—”
SMACK!
“Oh my god!” Mark cries, scooting away from where Renjun is beating the living daylights out of Lucas with the baguette. “Lucas! Fucking hell—Hyuck! Help me! Stop your boyfriend!”
“Keep going,” Donghyuck chirps instead, phone raised and recording the whole thing. “Don’t mind me.”
Mark low-key wants to throttle the little fucker.
Renjun must be thinking the same thing, because his head snaps over to Donghyuck. “Are you fucking—you know what, you’re next, Donghyuck Lee,” he hisses, already stalking over to the younger boy with the baguette poised above his head.
Donghyuck shoots up in his seat, his eyes blown wide with fear. “Wait, babe—”
Mark brings his hands up to cover his eyes. “Injun—”
WHACK!
“So,” Taeyong says as he hands Mark a plateful of sliced baguette, eyeing the small group of boys in his room. “You guys had a fight. Over bread. Am I hearing this right?”
The sheer amount of judgment in his stare is enough to make them all avert their eyes from the RA’s gaze, because nobody wants to invoke a possible mom-lecture. Taeyong has quite the reputation as one of the stricter RAs in the building, with a penchant for chewing up troublemakers. Getting on his bad side is an almost-guarantee of being hounded for the rest of their college career.
“Yes,” Lucas and Renjun admit in unison, both hanging their heads as Taeyong’s eyes narrow at them.
“He tried to kill us all with a baguette!” Donghyuck exclaims, pointing an accusing finger at Renjun and using his free hand to hold a tissue against his bloody nose.
“Not all of us,” Lucas murmurs, pressing the ice pack Taeyong hands him against his forehead. “He left Mark alone.”
Renjun rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because Mark minds his own fucking business.”
“So was I!” Donghyuck protests, leaning over to pluck a piece of bread from Mark. “And you still beat the shit outta me. Your BOYFRIEND. How fucking rude.”
“Well, excuse me, but you were recording the whole damn thing for god knows what reason,” Renjun snaps back.
“But I didn’t do shit!”
“Yes, you did!”
“It was just bread,” Mark says miserably, staring down at the plate in his hands. “Just...bread.”
“Injunnie, maybe you need to lay off the coffee and get some sleep,” Lucas interjects, completely unfazed when Renjun redirects his glare onto him. “I think all the sleep-deprivation’s starting to fuck with your head.”
Renjun splutters, clearly embarrassed at being called out. “Hey, I didn’t start this—”
“Yeah, you did,” Mark, Lucas, and Donghyuck chorus. Renjun’s entire face flushes an unnatural shade of red, hands clenching and unclenching by his sides as he struggles to grasp onto what's left of his dignity.
“I wasn’t—”
“I think Lucas is right on this one,” Taeyong sighs, reaching towards the nearest cabinet and pulling out a jar of raspberry jam. “It’s just a baguette. You all know I’m just down the hall and have practically an entire kitchen in here. Why didn’t any of you just come to me with the bread sooner? I would’ve cut it for you.”
“And he has jam and butter,” Mark adds, taking the jar Taeyong hands to him. “I ran all the way down here crying for nothing.”
Taeyong winces, and it does nothing to quell the humiliation Mark feels as all the events of the past hour comes rushing back to him. After Renjun started beating the living daylights out of Donghyuck for recording him beating Lucas, Mark had promptly abandoned all his work to sprint to their RA’s door, bawling his eyes out from the stress and panic.
Not exactly the highlight of his year.
Luckily, nobody chooses to comment on his breakdown. Taeyong heaves a long-suffering sigh and nudges his head over to where their bags are lying on the floor. “Okay, you boys got your bread cut and your jam, now please, stop beating each other up with food, okay? I don’t wanna have to explain to Doyoung why there’s bread crumbs and blood all over the only study room on this floor.”
Renjun stiffens as Lucas and Donghyuck both turn to glare at him. Mark gulps at the thought of the RA on the floor above them. Even if Doyoung technically isn't their RA, the man is still scary enough to avoid bringing into certain situations. If getting on Taeyong's bad side will result in being watched closely for the remainder of college, getting on Doyoung's bad side will probably result in them having to hide a dead body.
“And Renjun.”
“Yes?”
“Go get some sleep. Maybe your temper will get better after some rest,” Taeyong says. “No more of this beating-people-up nonsense, you hear me?”
Renjun hangs his head in shame. “Yessir.”
“Mark.”
“Yes?” Mark squeaks, before clearing his throat, because that voice is just fucking embarrassing. “Um, yes?”
“Give me back my jam when you guys are done with it.”
Mark looks wearily down at the bread he’s holding in one hand and the jar he’s holding in the other. Donghyuck has already stolen half the plate’s worth of bread, and the jam jar is already more than half-empty. With how these people eat, he honestly doubts there will be anything to give back to Taeyong.
“Actually, can I trade you?” Mark offers, pointing at the remaining bit of baguette on Taeyong’s countertop. “Can we just finish the jam and you keep the rest of the baguette?”
Taeyong wrinkles his nose in distaste. “No, thanks. There’s blood on that end of the bread. You guys take it. Just buy me another jar of jam when you’re done with it.”
Donghyuck groans, popping another piece of bread into his mouth. “Do we have to?” he whines. “It’s just a bit of jam.”
Taeyong shrugs nonchalantly, the gesture not at all matching the mischievous glint in his eye. “I mean, you don’t have to, but it’ll be nice if you do. I can still talk to Doyoung about what happened in the study room—”
“NO!” all the younger boys shout in unison. Lucas drops his ice pack to clasp his hands together in a pleading gesture and Donghyuck almost inhales his bloody tissue as he scrambles to beg Taeyong for mercy.
“Please don’t!”
“We’ll get the jam!” Mark exclaims.
“What flavor do you like?” Lucas adds.
“How many jars do you want?”
“We can go get some like, right now—”
“Have mercy on us!”
“We’re just kids!”
“This will never happen again!” Renjun cries. “I’ll go to sleep! I’ll stop drinking coffee! I’ll do anything! Just don’t tell Doyoung!”
“Please!”
"I have a GPA to maintain! I can't die without getting that 4.0!"
“Hm.” Taeyong hums cryptically, pulling the remainder of the baguette off his counter and tucking it under Mark’s arm. “I’ll consider it. Now take your bloody bread and get out.”