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Early autumn heat trickles in behind Dongju as the air conditioning of the university bookstore blasts him from the front.
Stupid sweaty back from stupid backpack because stupid Dongmyeong needed him to pick up his stupid new laptop. He couldn’t even complain about it, because Dongmyeong had driven the whole way from their home to school, letting Dongju take what might have been the best four-hour nap of his life.
But here he is now, meandering through the maze of textbooks and school supplies. He could pick something up for Hwanwoong’s birthday. Or he could buy himself a cute new notebook just because he deserves a treat, always.
He doesn’t realize he’s made it all the way to the back of the store until he’s faced with another puff of even colder air — unknowingly carried by his feet to his final destination.
The tech room. Room? Refrigerator?
It’s sectioned off with another set of automatic doors — like a grocery store’s walk-in beer fridge. Not that Dongju drinks beer, in all its bitter wheat juiciness.
(It’s not bitter wheat juice, Dongmyeong would say.)
“Welcome!” a friendly voice greets Dongju, graciously dissolving the tiny Dongmyeong in his head. “Do you need any help?”
Dongju gulps down his sudden nerves and nods jerkily as he steps up to the counter, eyes cast downwards.
“Alright, what can I help you with?”
“I’m here to pick up a laptop,”
“Are you a student, and is it for you or a student here?”
“Yep. Brother. Both. I mean yes, to both. It’s for my brother,” Dongju stutters.
“Oh, amazing! That makes it so easy!”
No one in their right mind should sound that excited about someone picking up a laptop. Dongju has to chance a peek at the guy's face.
Wow.
He looks like a nerd.
It’s not like Dongju can judge the outfit — gray polo, gray hat that isn’t the same gray (that bothers Dongju to no end) — the guy’s working, after all.
But he’s lying. He can absolutely judge the outfit, and it’s a horrible, unflattering shade of gray. Both of them.
“...in our system,” the guy finishes.
“What?” Dongju says, clocking back into reality.
Lee Seoho, the guy’s nametag reads. “I just need the name the laptop was purchased under, and I can look it up in our system,” Lee Seoho repeats, just as cheerfully as the first time.
“Oh, sorry. The name is Son Dongmyeong.”
Lee Seoho gives him a cheesy two thumbs up before tapping furiously at the computer behind the counter. Dongju busies himself looking at the display beneath the glass, a row of smartphones. Who buys a phone from the university bookstore?
Well, Dongmyeong bought a laptop. Maybe there’s more business here than he’d expect.
“Son Dongmyeong! Got it!” Seoho does a little double-tongue-click. This guy can’t be real.
Seoho steps into a back room and emerges with a large box just moments later, placing it down in front of Dongju. “I need to enter your student ID to confirm that it’s been picked up.”
Dongju hands over his ID. As Seoho swipes it, he rapidly fires a whole bunch of information at Dongju that he absolutely doesn’t intend to remember.
“I’m sure your brother already knows this, plus it’s written in the manual, also you can look this up on our website, but the main thing is that this laptop was bought with a two-year warranty, which means any damage done to it, internal or external, can be fixed for free right here at the bookstore. Isn’t that neat?”
“Yeah...neat,” Dongju agrees, scratching his arm.
“It’ll most likely be fixed by me,” Seoho adds, looking mightily proud of himself. The pride soon melts off his face, however, as he taps impatiently at the register.
“So any type of damage, and we can bring the computer back here?” Dongju asks, out of some sort of courtesy, just to buy Seoho some time to struggle.
“Yes! Most places have limits on what type of damage, like you can’t get free repairs if you, like, spill coffee on it or something.” Seoho glares at the register as he speaks. “But since we’re also funded by the university, students get a lot of useful perks! No coffee worries!”
“No coffee worries,” Dongju repeats weakly.
Whatever Seoho’s trying to do continues to not cooperate.
“Sorry this is taking so long,” Seoho says, apologetic half-smile on his face. “I’m not usually working up front.” As if to spite him for speaking up, the register finally lets out a bright ding as he finishes his sentence.
“Oh! Nice!” Seoho tapes a receipt onto the laptop box and slides it over the counter. “Thanks so much for your patience, please let us know if you have any problems in the future!”
Dongju nods and tries to pick up the box. It’s heavier than expected, and he loses his balance for an alarming second before righting himself. He can feel his cheeks burning, but some part of him that apparently craves embarrassment has him glancing over at Seoho again.
Seoho breaks into a huge grin. One that reaches his stupidly sharp eyes, bends them into little crescents.
Dongju can feel his little theater-major heart, heavy as a laptop, thunk into his feet.
“Hear me out,” Dongju says, tossing his laptop onto Dongmyeong’s bed. Dongmyeong hums a little to let Dongju know he’s listening, but he doesn’t look away from where he’s organizing his lipstick collection.
“My laptop is much nicer than the one you just got from the bookstore. I think you can play minecraft on it without lagging.”
Dongmyeong grunts. “So what? Are you just here to rub it in? And since when did you play minecraft?”
“I don’t.” Dongju clenches his hands into fists, fighting the urge to throw a sock at Dongmyeong’s head. “I’m just saying, we should trade laptops.”
Dongmyeong finally turns around with a frown. “Why?”
Why? Shit, Dongju hadn’t considered being questioned.
“Um.” Dongju picks his laptop up off Dongmyeong’s bed, offering it to the other in two very polite hands. “Don’t you play minecraft?”
Dongmyeong glares at him. Dongju blinks awkwardly, files the moment away as one of the scariest Dongmyeongs he’s ever faced — but just a second later Dongmyeong’s eyebrows do a bizarre little dance and he utters the most beautiful four words Dongju has ever heard in his life.
“...Yeah, I play minecraft.”
A week.
One week is all Dongju can wait before he decides he has to go see Seoho again.
Not because the nerd in the computer store is, like, cute or anything.
He’s just had a bad day. Classes always pick up faster than he’d like at the beginning of the semester, and his screenwriting course had a check-in for their first project, and his professor told him his concept was cliché. Cliché! Dongju fancies himself a classy romanticist, so, maybe some of his ideas might be a little traditional, but. Cliché?
He rubs his eyes in frustration and almost walks into a wall. Neat.
Two steps outside the second set of automatic doors leading into the tech fridge, Dongju realizes he doesn’t have a reason to be here. And he can’t just buy a whole-ass smartphone on a whim for an excuse.
And what do you know, Seoho’s not even there.
Well, he’s not behind the counter, and what did he say last time? He’s not usually at the register, and he might be the one to fix the computer if it broke, right?”
“Hi, how can I help you?” asks the lady behind the counter.
“There’s a problem with this laptop,” Dongju lies.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is it one of ours?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, would you like to leave it here with us, and we can send you an email when it’s been fixed? It usually doesn’t take more than a day or two, depending on the type of issue.”
“Um.” Dongju pulls up every dreg of courage he has in his noodle body. “It’s kind of, urgent? And uh. Not a big issue maybe? I was wondering if I could maybe talk to whoever does repairs. If they’re not too busy right now.”
“Let me go check for you,” the lady says with a smile.
As soon as she’s out of sight, Dongju lets out a full-body wiggle to get out his jitters.
Mere seconds later, far too little time for Dongju to process, Seoho steps out from a back room.
“Hey! You’re the one with the brother!”
“Yeah,” Dongju says, “I’m Dongju.”
“Hi Dongju, I’m Seoho.”
“Yeah.” Dongju points at his nametag. “You sure are.”
“Oh! Right!” Seoho laughs too loudly. Some random kid looking at headphones glances over in their direction. “So, I heard you were having a problem with the laptop? How come your brother can’t come in?”
“He demanded we trade laptops,” Dongju lies some more. “So this one’s mine now.” He gets a sudden wave of worry. “That’s okay, right?”
Seoho waves it off. “That’s fine. Can I see the broken laptop? Do you know what’s wrong with it?”
“Um, no,” Dongju says. The laptop feels even heavier in his backpack than it usually is. And the bitch already weighs a ton. He drags it out slowly, placing it on the counter between them.
Seoho spins it around expertly and flips it open.
A few tense seconds as it whirs to life.
“It seems to be working fine?”
“Oh,” Dongju says, for lack of anything better to respond.
“Should I log in, try opening an internet browser or some files or something?” Seoho asks. “What wasn’t working before?”
“It just... wasn’t turning on?”
“Oh.” Seoho scratches his head. “Well, ta-da, all good?”
Dongju shuts the laptop awkwardly and drags it back towards himself. “Thank you.”
“Is that all?”
Dongju nods. “Sorry for wasting your time.”
Seoho grins that no-good-terrible bright grin. “I get paid by the hour, not by the project. So no harm done!
“Thank you,” Dongju repeats.
“No problem!” Seoho gives him a charming little wave. “I’m glad it’s working, I’m sure you’re busy and need it.”
Dongju bids his goodbyes and rushes out.
It’s still hot as balls outside, not helping the anxious sweat beading all over his skin.
Of course, stupid. To visit a store and ask for tech support, it would make sense for the tech to be broken.
Well, if break it he must, break it he will.
Dongju plops down next to Hwanwoong on their lumpy garbage couch.
Hwanwoong has the TV on, playing what is probably the pokemon anime. His laptop is open to an article about the history of the Korean language. And he seems to be paying attention to neither, lounging with an ugly throw pillow on his lap and scrolling through twitter.
Good timing, maybe.
“Hey,” Dongju says.
Hwanwoong doesn’t look up from his phone. “What’s up?”
“Just out of curiosity, what would be an easy way to get a virus on your laptop?” Dongju asks, as nonchalantly and conversationally as possible.
It doesn’t work. Hwanwoong puts down his phone, twitter apparently not as interesting as Dongju. Which, in any other situation, Dongju would have appreciated.
“Just out of curiosity, why do you need to know that?”
“I’m, uh, writing a short story?”
“Since when did you write short stories?”
Dongju panics. “It’s a fanfiction!”
Hwanwoong wiggles his eyebrows. “Ooh, fanfiction? Is it sexy?”
Dongju kicks him, forgetting what he’s trying to talk to Hwanwoong about in the first place. “Why is your first question whether it’s sexy and not, like, what it’s about.”
“Okay, then what is it about? And is it sexy?”
“No! Get your head out of the gutter.” Dongju immediately regrets egging Hwanwoong on. He mentally runs through every piece of media he can remember, which should be a lot, considering how many media studies courses he’s taken, but his mouth blabbers faster than his brain.
“It’s bible fanfiction.”
Hwanwoong kicks him back, but it may have been in genuine surprise. “Bible fanfiction exists?”
“Yeah,” Dongju says, entirely out of his ass. “It’s about. Jesus.”
“Ah, going for the fan-favorite character, I see,” Hwanwoong says sagely. He gets up and tosses the throw pillow at Dongju. “Well, I have dance practice to get to. Good luck with your Jesus downloading a computer virus fic.”
Oh yeah, the computer. Breaking said computer.
As Hwanwoong putters around their apartment getting ready, Dongju pulls out the ill-fated laptop and begins a session of intense google research.
how to download virus
how to get virus on computer
He vaguely registers Hwanwoong slamming the door closed on his way out. God, their hinges are going to break before the end of the year.
easy way to get a virus on computer
what is malware
how to download malware
how to permanently delete search history
It’s then, half an hour later, that he remembers he’s in a screenwriting class.
“I’m writing the story for my screenwriting class,” he says.
Of course, Hwanwoong is long gone.
I just caught a magikarp! Ash exclaims in the background.
“My laptop is broken,” Dongju says, whipping the heavy thing out from his backpack as dramatically as he can.
He’s waited a week and a half this time. No, not waited, he hasn’t been planning this, really, he just wants to bring a broken laptop in to prove that he’s truly accident-prone, that the first time wasn’t for some stupid reason, like wanting to see a certain nerd, or anything of the sort.
It all made more sense in his head.
Seoho stares at him through narrowed eyes. “For real this time?”
Dongju narrows his eyes right back. “You think I’d come here with a working laptop a second time in a row? That’s embarrassing.”
“So you knew last time that it wasn’t broken?”
“No!” Dongju yelps. “I meant, if I wasn’t one-hundy-percent-positive it was broken this time, I wouldn’t have brought it in! Because that would be embarrassing!”
“Aight,” Seoho says, but there’s an annoying twinkle in his eye.
He boots up the laptop in front of Dongju, one hand on his hip, clearly distrustful. It’s a little patronizing. But, just as planned (not planned), it sure is noticeably not working.
To be honest Dongju doesn’t really know what he did to it. It’s in Seoho’s hands now. Quite literally.
“You’re right,” Seoho says unnecessarily, “it’s definitely not working. Looks like some sort of virus?”
“How unfortunate!” Dongju places a metaphorical hand on his chest like the lead in a period piece.
“So, how’d you get this virus?”
Shit, part three. Dongju really needs to start coming up with answers to everyone’s hypothetical questions — he’s been slipping too often lately.
“I was watching anime,” he blurts out, remembering pokemon.
“Fun,” Seoho says.
Dongju laughs weakly. “Yeah, so I was watching anime illega- illegitimately, and, you know, there are lots of ads.”
Seoho nods. “Annoying, yeah.”
“And I just... couldn’t help but click on the invitation to, um. Meet hot busty milfs in my area.”
What.
“What?”
Well. Dongju can’t really back out now? He shrugs, hoping his shoulders convey enough explanation.
Seoho purses his lips. “But wouldn’t hot busty milfs in the area be like... professors?”
What?
“What?”
“You know, being in a college town and all? You tell me, dude, you’re the one into milfs.”
“Let’s forget the milfs,” Dongju pleads.
Seoho taps a finger on his chin and looks off into the distance. “Hmmmmm,” he drawls out for far too long.
Dongju can feel his ears burning. Why’d he think this place was a refrigerator before?
“You can pick up your laptop in two days,” Seoho says. “And no, I don’t think I’ll forget the milfs.”
Unfortunately, two days later, when Dongju drops by the bookstore to pick up his laptop, Seoho is once again nowhere to be seen.
Also unfortunately, Hwanwoong has tagged along with him, saying he needs to pick up some textbook last-minute. Which is fine, but Dongju isn’t sure why he’s still stuck to his side like a little medical leech.
“Hello,” Dongju greets politely, trying not to make his disappointment audible, “I’m here to pick up my laptop.”
To his confusion, the lady at the desk frowns. “Ah… could you give me a name?” she asks.
“Son Dongju.”
“I’m sorry, there isn’t a laptop here for a Son Dongju.”
“Oh, right, it might be under Son Dongmyeong?”
The lady shakes her head.
Dongju mirrors her frown. “Could you please double-check? I was told to come by today, and I got a confirmation email earlier that it was done being fixed?”
“There’s only one laptop ready for pickup right now, and it’s not under your name.”
“Oh.” Dongju turns away awkwardly, but Hwanwoong pushes him back.
“Maybe someone entered his name incorrectly on accident,” he says, “could we know what name that other laptop is under?”
The lady’s frown morphs into an odd expression. “I’m sorry boys, but I’m really sure it’s not some accident or typo.”
“I’m sure it should be here,” Dongju says, drawing up his courage, “please, ma’am, could I know the name?”
“Um, it’s.” She clears her throat awkwardly. “Last name Hunter, first name Milf?”
No, I don’t think I’ll forget the milfs.
Dongju considers pretending not to know what’s going on. He can feel his face turning into a beet, but maybe he can blame it on being confronted with milfs out of the blue. Yeah. He opens his mouth to deny it’s his, but before he can speak, a certain someone gasps.
“You’re into milfs?” Hwanwoong loudly announces, to the entire store.
“No,” Dongju hisses, “I’m not into milfs.”
“But you said you were sure the laptop was here! You got an email and everything!”
“This laptop is the only one that was in the store for repairs this week,” the lady helpfully adds.
“Then it must be yours!” Hwanwoong looks up with the most gleeful expression Dongju’s ever seen. “C’mon Milf Hunter,” he cackles, “hurry up and take it so we can go.”
The lady accepts Dongju’s ID and swipes it. “Yeah, it’s yours. Alright, you’re all good.”
Hwanwoong adjusts his backpack straps and heads for the exit.
“So, your name isn’t really Milf Hunter, right?” the lady asks.
Hwanwoong trips and falls on his face. Bless the universe, Dongju supposes.
Done with his classes for the day, Dongju slumps into a couch at Starbucks and closes his eyes. He takes a sip of his late-afternoon coffee, blissfully cold on his tongue and jolting his brain into action again.
“Hey! Milf hunter!”
Coffee spurts out of Dongju’s nose.
“Oh, ew.” Seoho hands him a damp napkin. “It’s wet from condensation,” he explains, but Dongju’s already using it to wipe off his face.
His nose burns and he feels like sneezing and he can’t seem to open his eyes correctly. So he closes them again. “That was cruel of you,” he says.
“Jeez, sorry I didn’t have a dry napkin.”
Dongju peeks open one eye just to give the other his best glare. “You know that’s not what I meant!”
Seoho blinks innocently. “What did you mean, then?”
Dongju ignores him and takes another sip of his coffee.
“Is the laptop working well?” Seoho asks, sitting down next to him, seemingly, infuriatingly, undeterred.
Dongju sighs. “Yeah, it’s great.”
“Let’s hope you keep it that way! No more hot busty m—”
“Don’t worry,” Dongju interrupts him, “I’ll never be tempted again.”
“Temptation is a natural human experience,” Seoho offers.
Dongju puts down his coffee so he can use both his hands to rub his eyes. “Listen, my guy, I just got done with classes. I’m tired. I’m not into milfs. The natural human experience is suffering.”
Seoho ignores Dongju’s complaining. “Oh, you just got done with classes? I just got off work! Do you get coffee here usually?”
“Did you just you-come-here-often me?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with being curious?”
“Why are you interested?”
“There are better places for coffee than Starbucks.”
Dongju stares pointedly at Seoho’s cup.
Seoho gives him a benign smile. “We’re all pawns of capitalism sometimes, kiddo.”
Dongju rolls his eyes. Dismissive act aside, it’s kind of nice to unwind from the day talking to someone new.
“So, like, you’re single, right? Because I know this pretty nice milf—”
Dongju barely manages to keep more coffee from spilling out his nose. “I’m not interested in milfs!”
It really says a lot about college students, he thinks, that no one bothers to spare the two of them a glance.
“Oh, okay,” Seoho says. Dongju isn’t sure whether he’s imagining the disappointment in his voice. What a weirdo.
They sit in silence for a few minutes. Dongju uploads a selfie onto his instagram, scrolls through all the pet accounts he follows. Sitting here in the warm, dim light is nice, but he should really get going unless he wants to be late to his group meeting.
“I should go,” he tells Seoho. Technically they’re not here together, but he’d feel weird just up-and-leaving since the other apparently has no intention of finding his own table.
“Do you want my number?” Seoho asks.
“What? Why?” Dongju splutters. “Why would I want your number?”
Seoho shrugs. “Computer questions?”
For a moment, Dongju worries that he didn’t wipe his search history well enough, that Seoho knows this was all an elaborate setup—
“Also I could send you better websites to watch anime.”
Oh. Maybe he’s in the clear, then.
“I don’t usually watch anime, I watch musicals,” Dongju says, but he hands over his phone anyways, unwilling to drag this on for any longer.
Seoho nimbly types in his number and texts himself.
And oh, the fucker waits, waits until Dongju’s phone is back in his hands to add,
“I can also text you if I meet any hot milfs that might be interested!”
It’s a pleasant Thursday night, weather cooling off just enough for him to throw on a cardigan, and Dongju’s in a good mood when he finally gets home.
He opens the apartment door to find Hwanwoong milling about aimlessly around their kitchen. When he sees Dongju, he perks up, then deflates immediately.
“So,” he says, voice quieter than usual, “I saw you left your laptop at home today, so I, um, borrowed it.”
Dongju raises his eyebrows. “Why? And how’d you guess my password?”
“You didn’t set one?”
“Oh.”
“Well,” Hwanwoong’s tone shifts back into the soft, apologetic one. Suspicious. “I needed another textbook, right? And it was super expensive.”
“Did you use my card?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that! But, um, I was looking for a place to download the textbook for free.”
Uh-oh, Dongju’s beginning to see where this is going.
“I think I got a virus or something.” Hwanwoong, to his credit, truly looks remorseful. “Sorry?”
Dongju puts his head in his hands. “Why were you using my laptop in the first place? You have a working one of your own.”
“Well... you know how textbook downloading sites can be... a little sus...”
Dongju takes back the credit he gave Hwanwoong earlier. He’s a tiny gremlin. “You knew this was going to happen.”
“No, I did not know, I simply highly suspected,”
“Why- Why would you- Why were you—”
“You know my laptop is old and frail! Yours is nice and powerful and new I thought maybe it could withstand whatever those downloading sites threw at it!”
“I don’t think that’s how computers work.”
Hwanwoong rolls his eyes. All the remorse from earlier was an act, Dongju should have seen it. “What do you know about computers? Anyways, as I was saying, I thought your computer could handle it better. And if it didn’t, I wouldn’t have a laptop at all! You can go get yours fixed for free! I read the manual you left on the table.”
Well, at least Dongmyeong’s getting his money’s worth on this laptop.
What’s one more visit to tech support?
This time, Dongju carefully plans his visit so that no one he’s interacted with at the store is working when he brings in the bad-luck-laptop.
Just for good measure, he skips class to come in at the most unexpected hour.
The lady who’s usually there is nice, and Seoho is... also nice, but Dongju’s not sure he can handle a third broken-laptop query.
Or another milf-lover accusation.
Everything goes perfectly. No one at the store has ever seen him before. They accept the laptop without question. Dongju also makes sure to avoid the Starbucks, avoid being around central campus at all, avoid any possibility of being seen by a certain nerd.
Which means he needs to skip a second class but. Anything to preserve his pride.
That night, bundled up in the safety of his own twin-sized bed overflowing with plushies, when his guard is finally let down—
A pride-destroyer knocks at his door.
Well, it shoots Dongju a text.
Tech God Lee Seoho: :^)
Attached is a Youtube link. Curiosity may have killed the cat but Dongju’s no coward. He opens the video.
Filling My PC with Beans and Hiring a Repair Man to Fix it
Hwanwoong gives Dongju a (used) Starbucks gift card to apologize for the laptop virus.
It’s enough for, like, two drinks maybe, but since Dongju can get the laptop fixed for free, he’d feel a little bad asking for anything more.
But he uses the opportunity that it’s not his own money (nor is it Hwanwoong’s) to stop by and buy himself something large and sweet and ice blended and filled with a bunch of things that aren’t coffee.
He’s carrying it out the door when he runs into, who else, but Seoho.
“I have your laptop,” Seoho says.
“What? Why?”
“I didn’t see you bring it in, so I was worried you’d miss me!”
Dongju rolls his eyes as he sets his backpack down on a nearby table. “How’d you know I’d be here?”
“You were here last week, I hypothesized.”
It’s really nice of Seoho to bring it by, and this saves him lots of time, so Dongju bites his tongue to hold back a mocking response.
“Why’d you send me a video of someone pouring canned beans into his computer?” he asks instead, taking back his laptop and putting it away.
Seoho stares at him silently.
Dongju stares back.
“Are you doing anything for the rest of the day?” Seoho says, clearly ignoring Dongju’s question.
“I’m going to drink this coffee.”
“Do you wanna go play basketball or something?”
Dongju stares harder. “Do I look like someone who plays basketball to you?”
Seoho blinks, gives him a once-over, smirks. “Ah, sorry, theater kid.”
“What’s with the tone?” Dongju crosses his arms. “What’s your problem with theater kids?”
“Nothing! Why would I have a problem with theater kids? I was a theater kid.”
“You’re lying. Name one play.”
“Cats the musical.”
Dongju huffs and slings his backpack on. The extra weight of the laptop makes him sway a little, bringing out an infuriating little breath of a laugh from Seoho.
“You’re just a nerdy jock,” Dongju says.
Seoho laughs harder. “Yes and yes! I’m simply good at everything!”
Dongju turns away and starts walking out the door. “I’m not playing basketball.”
Seoho trails after him like an annoying puppy. “Okay, if not basketball, we could get dinner?”
Technically, Dongju was going to swipe Dongmyeong into a dining hall today, but the gremlin could find a different way to con someone into free food. Seoho’s annoying, but cafeteria food is worse than Seoho.
And maybe he could be the one to con someone into free food instead.
“I’m broke,” he says, mentally crossing his fingers that Seoho will offer to pay.
Seoho breaks out into a grin. “Oh bitch me too! Broke buddies!”
They wind up at Dongju and Hwanwoong’s apartment.
Not ideal, but Seoho brought him the laptop, and Seoho’s place is much further away, and he lives with three other guys. So Dongju, ever so understanding, kind, and big-hearted, finds himself standing awkwardly in his small kitchen, looking for literally anything to make.
There’s nothing in the fridge other than some beer, a bizarre amount of lemon juice, and Hwanwoong’s leftovers. Which actually look pretty good, and Dongju would steal some if. He didn’t also have to feed Seoho, also standing awkwardly in his small kitchen.
“Do you have cereal?” Seoho asks.
“No,” Dongju says, going through their cabinets now.
“Damn. We could’ve had cereal with lemon juice.”
Dongju stops his rummaging to stare blankly into the empty cupboard. “What about, we just make ramen instead.”
“That’s perfect! What flavor?”
“Chicken.” Dongju brings their biggest pot to a boil, tossing in as many packets of noodles as the pot can hold. Which is only four, but, Seoho’s not allowed to complain.
Seoho hums, leaning against the counter. “Do you guys have any chocolate syrup?”
Dongju shoots him a glance. “Doubt it, but even if we did, we’re making ramen. What would you need chocolate syrup for?”
“You know how some people put peanut butter into their ramen to fake a peanut sauce?”
“...Yeah...”
“Peanut butter goes well with chocolate, right? So chocolate syrup could taste good in ramen!”
Hwanwoong chooses this time to return home, barging in through the door.
“Dongju! Dongju! I looked it up and bible fanfiction is real, and it’s sexy!”
“Sorry for interrupting your date.” Hwanwoong’s perched on their countertop with a box of fried chicken on his lap, and Dongju wants to ask him if he’s up there because it makes him feel tall, but the little bastard isn’t above throwing shit.
“Not a date.” Dongju snags a drumstick. “That’s the guy that fixes my laptop.”
“Kinda sexy! Like when you get together with your plumber!”
“I don’t want to get together with our plumber.”
“Wait.” Hwanwoong’s eyes light up. “If it’s laptop guy... is that... milf man?”
“No! No milfs!”
Hwanwoong waves a wing in the air. “He’s clearly not a milf, but I think you should ask him out,” he says around his mouthful of chicken.
“I think you should get your ass out of my business,” Dongju responds, mouth not full of chicken, like a self-respecting conversationalist.
“Yeah!” A piece of gristle falls out from between Hwanwoong’s lips. “He’s got a fat ass, you should ask him out!”
“Why were you staring at his ass?”
“Am I not permitted to admire an ass these days, Mister Milf Hunter?”
“No,” Dongju says, narrowing his eyes. “You’re not. Also, you disgust me.” He walks out of the kitchen.
“Damn,” he can hear Hwanwoong saying after him, “who thought I’d be oppressed in the 21st century for being an ass-man…”
The weather’s starting to get a little chilly. It’s been about two weeks since Dongju last saw Seoho. They’ve texted periodically, mostly silly things with very few words, and it’s been nice enough that he’s considering dropping by the bookstore.
Turns out he doesn’t need to, because he finds the self-proclaimed tech god lying facedown in the grass at the park.
“Mm photosynthesizing,” Seoho mumbles when Dongju prods his side.
“You’re what now.”
Seoho sits up. He has on a tragic bucket hat that clashes with his hair. “Man is one with nature,” he says, eyes closed. “Sunlight sugar energy courses through my veins.”
“Are you high?”
Seoho grins. “Nah. Are you offering?”
“Will you pay me?”
“You’d make me, the poor guy that has to deal with all your milf viruses, pay?”
Dongju slaps his arm. “You get paid to fix the viruses! I technically pay you through my tuition.”
“Technically—”
“Technically whatever. I don’t do drugs.” Dongju hits his arm again, softer this time. “I wanna walk down to the river, do you want to photosynthesize over there instead? I thought you died.”
Seoho dusts off his pants and they walk over together, finding some flat rocks overlooking the shallow water to rest on.
“If I died, I could be buried, and my corpse could fertilize some plants, which would photosynthesize,” Seoho says.
“That’s kinda morbid.”
“Is it? I think it’s pretty neat.”
Dongju looks at Seoho’s side profile, cast in shadow by the ugly hat. “Why do you want to photosynthesize so badly?”
Seoho shrugs. “It would be cool to be a plant. We don’t know what it’s like to be a plant. I’d like to experience it for myself.”
“Isn’t it enough to experience being a human? You’re pretty good at being a human, I think?”
“Oh?” Seoho turns to face Dongju, giving him a cocky grin. “You think I’m good at being human?”
Dongju smacks him. “Literally no one would take that as a flirty comment.”
“You’re going to give me a bruise,” Seoho complains, but his smile reappears just seconds later. “You’re flirting? I’m not a milf, but, maybe you think I’m kinda cute?”
“Stop talking about milfs! I don’t like milfs! Besides,” Dongju scoffs, “no one would look cute in that hat.”
Seoho pouts and pulls off the hat. His hair is a matted mess beneath it, sticking out at the sides in uneven spikes. “What’s wrong with my hat—”
A gust of wind tosses the hat into the river.
Seoho squawks.
The hat flows a few meters downstream before getting wedged precariously between two protruding rocks. It wobbles, and Seoho leaps up and throws off his shoes.
His pants are rolled up and he’s already one foot in the water before Dongju remembers.
“Wait! Don’t go in! I read on the news there’s a new type of algae in the rivers around here that are fatal to dogs!”
Seoho doesn’t listen to him, splashes away until Dongju can’t hear his steps anymore, and performs a daring rescue to rival an action hero.
He’s shivering violently by the time he returns to shore, wet up to the ass. All for the ugly hat.
Seoho opens his mouth to speak, and Dongju can see the way he’s shaking, teeth vibrating. It takes him a few seconds to form words.
“You think I’m a dog?”
This looks like the right apartment. Well, Dongju wouldn’t know what the apartment looks like. The number is the same one Seoho texted him. He lets himself in, as Seoho instructed.
Seoho, who is sick.
Dongju sighs when he sees him, starfished on top of all his blankets, staring at the ceiling.
“It’s the algae, huh.”
Seoho groans and curls into the fetal position.
“Well, I brought some common cold medicine, and some canned soup, and a dog toy—”
Seoho sits up. “A what?”
“Good, you’re alive.” Dongju sighs again. “I’ll just leave it on your desk. I also brought this thermos of hot milk.”
“Hot milk?”
“I don’t know, it has honey in it, it should be soothing, right? It’s at a good temperature to drink right now, if you can manage.”
Seoho accepts the thermos weakly and takes a small sip.
Dongju fidgets. “How does it taste?”
“Like hot milk with honey,” Seoho says. He tries to laugh, but it sounds like a cat’s using his throat as a scratcher.
“Ha, ha,” Dongju laughs for him, rolling his eyes. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m okay.” Seoho takes another sip, longer this time, and hums softly. “Thanks for all of this. I’ll pay you back later.”
“You better.”
Seoho smiles, but it looks pitiful more than anything. “Aren’t you worried you’ll get sick?”
“Is dog nerfing algae contagious?” Dongju sticks out his tongue. “Even if it is, I happen to have the immune system of a god, thank you very much.”
“Do gods have immune systems?” Seoho gulps his milk, either feeling better or more awake or just invested in this conversation. “Hey, do you think some mythologies incorporated that? Like, sorry puny people the god of the harvest can’t come to the phone right now they have the flu!”
“Don’t overexert yourself,” Dongju says. He pulls out Seoho’s desk chair and takes the soup cans out of the bag, stacking them so that the labels all face forward.
To be honest, he’s a little sad — yeah, he and Seoho have been becoming better friends through their texts, but seeing as no one else has come around, no one seems to be checking up on the other, it doesn’t even look like any of his roommates have grabbed him some medicine; Dongju’s worried Seoho’s alone. But he can’t just ask that, can’t just say hey do you have any real friends? That would be crossing a line, he thinks.
“Do you mind if I do some of my homework here?”
“I’m not going to perish in my sleep, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“No, not that, Hwanwoong just has a bunch of friends over and I don’t want to go to any of the libraries during midterm season,” Dongju lies.
“Oh. If you want to, that’s fine.”
They stay as they are for a while, Dongju surprisingly productive, Seoho surprisingly quiet, only speaking up to offer Dongju a portable charger when he groans about his phone dying.
About thirty minutes in, Seoho silently gets up and goes to the bathroom.
Which wouldn’t be concerning, but it’s been thirty more minutes and Seoho is still in the bathroom.
Dongju gets up and pads his way over, awkwardly hesitating by the door. “Are... are you okay in there?”
“Yeah! It’s fine, I’m just lactose intolerant!”
Dongju bonks his head into the wall. “Why did you drink the milk, then!”
“It was nice of you to bring it!”
Dongju stands there for a moment, head still resting against the wall.
“Hey,” Seoho calls out from behind the door, “are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think gods can be lactose intolerant?”
There’s a certain smell to the tech section of the bookstore. Dongju sniffs the air as the automatic doors slide open with a faint buzz. He’s getting used to the sound of the doors, the scent of the, um. He still doesn’t really know what the smell is. Metal? Electricity?
“You know,” Seoho’s annoying voice comes floating by as Dongju takes just two steps into the room. “you can stop doing this.”
“Dongju crosses the distance between them and leans on the counter, making a show of leaving fingerprints all over the glass. “Doing what?” he asks, attempting an innocent smile.
Seoho snorts and slams a tub of disinfecting wipes down right by Dongju’s hand. “Breaking your laptop on purpose just to see me.”
Dongju grimaces, hoping Seoho doesn’t notice the warming of his ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He thanks the perhaps lactose intolerant gods above that he does, in fact, have a reason to be here today. “I accidentally took this home after borrowing it last week,” he says, procuring Seoho’s portable charger.
To Dongju’s confusion, Seoho ignores the charger and lowers his voice into a conspiratory whisper. “Did you know I have abs?”
Dongju jerks upwards. “What?”
“I have skills in many fields!” Seoho pulls out a wipe with a dramatic flourish, tips an invisible hat down in Dongju’s direction. “Maybe even magic.”
“That’s cute,” Dongju says. “Do you want your charger back or not?”
Seoho flings the wipe to the side. It lands with a gentle plop on the cash register. “Have you noticed how nice my ass is?” He doesn’t let Dongju react this time before continuing. “I have much knowledge of many things. Lots of fun facts to share!”
Dongju crosses his arms. “I’m happy for you,” he deadpans.
“What I’m saying is,” Seoho leans across the counter. “you can stop playing these stupid games. Stop metaphorically beaning your laptop and just ask me out.” He breaks into a huge grin. “I’m so cool I’d be an amazing boyfriend. I have so many assets! Unfortunately I’m not a milf, but you’re clearly into me.”
Dongju rolls his eyes and hits Seoho with the charger.
“Ow, what the hell?”
“I’m hardly interested,” Dongju says, dropping the charger into Seoho’s hands. He spins on his heel to leave. How convenient that no one’s in the store today.
He stops at the door, doesn’t bother to turn back around — he can hear Seoho still walking around, wiping down the glass.
“Dinner tomorrow,” Dongju calls behind him. “Not at my apartment. Not at your apartment. You can take me out.”