Chapter Text
When Yugyeom walks into his dorm room, he nearly screams.
Because lounging on his roommate’s bed, is a boy Yugyeom’s never seen before in his life.
For just a second, Yugyeom thinks this might be a dream, because from all the movies he’s seen, he doesn’t remember burglars being this good-looking. They don’t usually have a pretty face, golden skin, long legs and silver hair tied up into a bun.
No, this must be real.
Looking around for the closest thing to use as a weapon, Yugyeom spots an umbrella just outside their door, and holds it up like a baseball bat.
He almost immediately drops it when he notices that it’s covered in rain, and the thing falls to the floor with a wet plop.
There go his socks.
The stranger grimaces. “Yeah… That’s why I put it in the hall.”
The accent is hard to miss, but he speaks Korean with ease.
“I’m Bambam. Maybe you’ve heard of me? I’m friends with Myungho,” he says. “We were gonna meet up but something came up at the last minute so he gave me the key and asked me to wait here.”
Yugyeom’s eyes bug out of his head. What the hell is Seo Myungho thinking, giving out their room key to people Yugyeom doesn’t know? He has no problem at all rooming with a foreigner, but this is a bridge too far. Is this a normal thing to do in China? Is this guy also Chinese?
Yugyeom clears his throat. “Uh— nihao.”
Bambam chuckles. “Cute, but I’m not Chinese.”
“Oh.” Well, that’s awkward. “Sorry. It’s just that— you’re friends with Myungho and you have a bit of an—”
“Accent?” Bambam fills in for him, still sitting on Myungho’s bed like he owns the place, all relaxed and casual with his back against the pillows. “I’m Thai.”
“Oh,” Yugyeom repeats. He leaps across the umbrella and its newly created wet spot to sit on his own bed. “So… How long did Myungho say it’s gonna take?”
Bambam looks from his phone screen to his watch. “Like, half an hour? I wouldn’t normally do this either but the cafeteria was full and my apartment’s pretty far from here.”
Yugyeom can't wipe the jealousy off his face. He likes Myungho’s company and all, but Yugyeom's fine with messy and chaos while Myungho is everything but. Having to deal with Myungho’s constant nagging is a bit like rooming with his mom.
“And, well, Myungho said you had class.”
“Got canceled.” And normally, he’d been ecstatic, but he found out after he’d already gotten up and walked to the C building. In the pouring rain.
He’s still wet.
Yugyeom purses his lips, thinking. “Are you gonna steal my stuff if I take a shower?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, man,” he says in English. “I’ve been here this whole time.”
“Maybe everything’s already in your pocket.”
Bambam levels him with a blank look.
Yugyeom raises his hands. “Just checking.”
He pushes himself off the bed, cursing himself for creating another wet spot, and plucks a new outfit from the dresser.
Bambam looks as unbothered as he did when Yugyeom came in, but the way he looks up when Yugyeom coughs to get his attention is very cute. A little cat-like.
He points into the bathroom. “I’ll just be— yeah.”
Bambam gave him a thumbs-up, eyes on his phone. Yugyeom feels a little like he’s babysitting a 12-year-old.
Once in the bathroom, he locks the door and presses his back to it. He fumbles for his phone, dries the screen with his sleeve and opens the KakaoTalk app.
To: xuminghao_o
Care to explain why there’s a hot stranger in our room !!!!!!!
From: xuminghao_o
Aren’t you in class?
To: xuminghao_o
Got canceled
But hello??? Why is there a guy I have never seen before in my life in our room????????
Myungho texts like an 80-year-old with a huge thumb, so Yugyeom has to wait a whole three minutes before a new message pops up.
From: xuminghao_o
I told you about this club I joined recently, right? It’s for foreigners. We have a club meeting later and I told Bambam we’d have lunch before the meeting but I got up on an assignment that I need to submit at noon. Working on it with Mingyu right now. I’ll pick Bambam up when we’re done, should be soon.
From: xuminghao_o
You’ll probably like him. He’s your kind of weird.
To: xuminghao_o
What the hell is that supposed to mean
After a few minutes of waiting for an answer, he gave up. Besides, if he wants Myungho to finish his assignment as soon as possible, texting him doesn't help. And no matter how cute Bambam is, Yugyeom isn’t keen on having an unsupervised stranger in his room for too long.
As he steps under the shower, he wonders how on earth he’s never seen Bambam before when he looked like that. Where has Myungho been hiding him all this time? Sure, Yugyeom knows Myungho has friends who are foreigners but Yugyeom only ever really sees him with Mingyu, who is very much Korean.
Maybe he should really pay more attention to the people Myungho hangs out with.
As soon as he’s dressed, he darts out of the bathroom to see Bambam in the exact same position Yugyeom left him.
“I texted Myungho,” Yugyeom says as he picks up his sheets and flips them around. Does this help dry the wet spot? No. Will his jeans stay dry now? Yes. “He confirmed your story.”
Yugyeom rubs his hair with the towel one last time before throwing it on the floor. He’ll take care of that later. “I didn’t know what to think,” he shrugs. “Myungho said you’re in a club or something?”
Bambam shifts, shoves his phone in his back pocket and goes to sit at the edge of the bed. Because Yugyeom sits at the edge of his own, they’re looking directly at each other.
“Yeah. We talk about what it’s like living in Korea as foreigners. And to improve our Korean too I guess.”
“Your Korean seems fine, though?”
Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. Is Bambam insecure about his Korean? Yugyeom did just point out his accent. Yugyeom wouldn’t like it if someone pointed out his accent when he speaks English, even though he can speak literally no English at all.
But he didn’t mean that Bambam’s accent is a bad thing. It makes him sound charismatic.
“What other languages do you speak?” Yugyeom asks.
He starts counting on his fingers. “Thai, obviously. I’m almost fluent in Korean and I’m good at English. I understand some Japanese and Chinese too, but not much.”
Yugyeom gapes at him. That’s so fucking cool.
“What about you?”
He chuckles awkwardly. “Uh, just Korean. I have to take this English class as part of my major but my grades have been… pretty abysmal, so to say.”
Bambam tilts his head. “What does abysmal mean?”
“Oh,” Yugyeom says, “like, extremely bad.”
He gives him an understanding nod. “What are you struggling with?”
Yugyeom grimaces at the simple thought of it. He would never have admitted this to any of his Korean friends, priding himself on being better at English at Youngjae, but that didn’t really take much. With Bambam, though, because he’s so used to learning new languages, it feels okay to talk about this.
“A better question would be what am I not struggling with,” he jokes.
“Okay,” Bambam says with a grin. “What aren’t you struggling with?”
“Oh. Uh.” He didn’t expect Bambam to run with the joke. “Well, uh. I can introduce myself? I guess? But, like, I can’t talk about my day or what I did yesterday or stuff like that.”
“And you should be able to? I don’t know what level that English class is at …”
Yugyeom pulls a face, giving Bambam his answer.
“Do you have any homework for that class? I’m kinda bored so I can help out if you want?” Bambam offers, catching Yugyeom by surprise. Not that he doesn’t think Bambam is friendly, because he’s clearly easy to talk to.
While Yugyeom fumbles with his wet bag, Bambam plops down next to him on the bed, knees drawn to his chest as he watches Yugyeom open his laptop case.
Up close like this, with Bambam looking all small and cute, Yugyeom notices the blue color contacts he’s wearing and how they look against his dark eyelashes. He also spots a mole under his left eye.
“Uh— earth to Yugyeom?”
He quickly looks back at his laptop, cheeks hot. Obviously he was gonna notice you were staring, you dumbass.
Then Yugyeom suddenly backtracks. “Wait, you know my name?”
“Of course,” Bambam laughs. “Myungho doesn’t shut up about you.”
That is a bad sign.
Yugyeom chuckles awkwardly. “Only good things I hope.”
“No,” Bambam admits easily. “He only ever complains about you.”
Wow. Lovely. Just great.
If someone finds a dead body that resembles Seo Myungho, it wasn’t Yugyeom.
Once he finds the next assignment due, he plans to hand over the laptop, but instead Bambam just looks over Yugyeom’s shoulder.
And that’s fine. Absolutely fine. No problem whatsoever. But once Yugyeom feels small little breaths near his ear, he gulps.
“Use the present simple,” Bambam reads, and Yugyeom feels him move closer to point it out. Once his fingers hover below the sentence, he glances at Yugyeom. “Do you know what that is?”
Yugyeom refuses to turn his head. He’ll either slam his face right into Bambam’s or there’ll be barely any space between their noses, and Yugyeom isn’t sure how to deal with either of those options.
He swishes his mouth to the side, thinking. “Isn’t that, like, how to talk about now?”
“Yeah,” Bambam says. “Do you know how to use it? Can you think of a sentence using the present simple?” He’s putting a teacher-like voice on, but he doesn’t sound skeptical or scolding. The tone he uses is calm and encouraging.
Yugyeom tries to look for an answer somewhere deep inside his brain, but ends up finding nothing. That doesn’t say much, though, because if Bambam asked him to multiply 2 by 4 Yugyeom still wouldn't have given him the correct answer.
Bambam’s neck is fanning his neck and his eyes are solely focused on Yugyeom and is it always so hot in here?
He’s completely blanking, and because he can’t seem to think anymore, he forgets that he isn’t supposed to turn his head.
Thankfully, there’s no face-slamming, their noses don’t even touch, but all Yugyeom is focussing on is Bambam’s parted pink mouth, the plush of his lips, the way he wets his bottom one with his tongue, and it would be so easy to—
“Why the hell is our floor wet?”
Yugyeom almost falls off the bed and nearly dislocates Bambam’s jaw trying to move away from him, not wanting Myungho to start spewing nonsense about Yugyeom cursing their dorm room with horny-brain-syndrome.
“Oh, I’ll clean it up soon,” he dismisses.
Myungho looks unimpressed. “And what about that wet towel over there?”
“I’ll also clean that up soon.”
“Right,” Myungho says slowly, not believing a word. Then, before Yugyeom’s own bewildered eyes, he does a full 180 by flashing Bambam a smile. “Sorry ‘bout the wait, Bam-ah. Good to go?”
“Yep,” Bambam chirps as he pushes himself off Yugyeom’s bed.
Yugyeom is still kind of reeling from the ordeal. Was he really just about to kiss Bambam, the boy he met thirty minutes ago, if Myungho hadn’t stormed into their dorm room?
Yeah. He guesses he was.
Then the sound of the literal evil echoes through the room: Myungho’s stupid alarm that he somehow also made his ringtone. The number of times Yugyeom woke up because of that screeching noise when he didn’t even have to get up yet is beyond his ability to count.
“It’s Junnie-hyung,” Myungho tells Bambam as he brings the phone to his ear. A string of Mandarin words follow and Yugyeom immediately notices the usually stoic tone of his voice changes to an affectionate one.
Yugyeom barely ever hears him talk like that.
Probably because he never talks to Yugyeom like that.
Myungho presses the phone to his shoulder and whispers, “I’ll be in the hall.”
“‘Kay,” comes Bambam’s simple reply.
Sitting on the bed, Yugyeom has a clear view of Bambam as he starts putting his shoes back on.
The bun in his hair looks cute from this angle.
But then the bun disappears as Bambam lifts his head. “Sorry I wasn’t able to help much, but if you need help in the future, I’m down.”
“Yeah!” Yugyeom immediately clears his throat, face flushed. “Uh. I mean, cool. Yeah, cool. That’d be awesome.”
Bambam laughs before holding up a peace sign. “See you later,” he says in English.
And he does see Bambam later. In fact, for some odd reason, he sees Bambam everywhere now.
He doesn’t understand how the hell that works, considering Yugyeom’d never seen him before and he definitely would’ve noticed that mop of silver hair, but he sure isn’t complaining.
Also, it seems like everyone and their mother knows Bambam. He figured Ten would know who Bambam is, but he didn’t expect every person in the dance studio to also know, or at least know of, him.
When Myungho came back from the club meeting that night, he rolled his eyes up at the ceiling when he noticed Yugyeom’s eager expression. “I know what you’re gonna ask,” he sighed.
Yugyeom folded his arms over his chest, confident Myungho wasn’t going to guess. “What?”
“You want Bambam’s number.”
Yugyeom should never be confident again.
He splutters. “Wha— No!”
"Right,” he said dryly as he started unpacking his bag. He looked over his shoulder, “Then what were you gonna ask?”
Yugyeom felt caught. “I wanted to, uh, wanted to ask how the meeting went! Yeah, how the meeting went,” he said with a nod. “So, how’d it go?”
“Fine. We discussed some things, planned some events—”
Yugyeom perked up at that. “Events?”
“Like going bowling or drinking together—”
“You’re going out for drinks!?” Yugyeom exclaimed. “Can I join?”
At that, his roommate looked at Yugyeom like he asked to donate his liver. “No.”
“Why not?” Yugyeom asked, pouting.
Myungho blinked at him. “What do you mean why not? It’s called the Foreigners Club for a reason.”
Yugyeom gave him a look that read so?
“You can’t seriously be this stupid,” Myungho retorted, but Yugyeom just stared back at him. “You’re not a foreigner, Yugyeom.”
Right.
Yugyeom bit his lip in thought. Bambam said the club came in handy in terms of improving their Korean, so surely they must need a Korean person to help correct their mistakes? Right?
“We already have one,” Myungho replied after Yugyeom asked about it.
Yugyeom instantly deflated. “Really? Who?”
“Park Jinyoung.”
“Jinyoung-hyung!?” Yugyeom yelled out.
What kind of betrayal was this? How in the hell did Jinyoung know Bambam? Bambam didn’t seem like someone Jinyoung would befriend, but then again, Jinyoung would probably not have wanted to know Yugyeom had their moms not been friends.
But then Yugyeom saw a possible connection between the two and asked who created the group.
“Wang Jackson.”
Yep. There it was. Jackson was Jinyoung’s friend, so naturally the person who created the group would want a friend to be their Token Grammar Police. And Jinyoung’s a literature student whose Korean is a lot better than Yugyeom’s anyway.
“But I take it you liked Bambam?” Myungho asked with a smirk, changing from his day clothes into his pajamas. “It’s hard not to, really.”
Yugyeom threw himself down on his bed, head hitting the pillows. “He’s pretty—”
Myungho scoffed.
“Pretty charismatic ,” Yugyeom emphasized, rolling his eyes. “And, what, can I not say he’s pretty?”
“You can, but I have eyes. Everyone has eyes,” Myungho said, taking out his colored contacts in front of the mirror. “His looks are all people talk about, really.”
That sent a pang of guilt down Yugyeom’s spine. Though he genuinely liked talking to Bambam, he had to admit that he spent 75% of their conversation thinking how cute Bambam was.
“How long have you known him?”
“Since last year,” Myungho said after some thinking.
Last year!?
But really thinking about it, he and Myungho only started rooming together this year and Yugyeom never paid attention to him before that. Which, in hindsight, made no sense because they were both friends with Mingyu, but they were only introduced to each other when they had to start sharing a room.
He should make a mental note to start paying more attention to his friends’ friends. Actually, maybe make that paying more attention in general. Just last month he found out Jinyoung’s been dating Im Jaebeom for the past two years and Yugyeom had no idea.
He should really start paying more attention to his friends’ friends. Actually, he should really start paying more attention in general. Just last month he found out Jinyoung had been dating Im Jaebeom for the past two years and he had no idea.
Myungho sighed. “Yugyeom-ah, I think you think we spend a lot more time together than we actually do.”
Yugyeom rose from his bed. “You know what,” he said, “you are absolutely right. We should hang out more.”
Myungho agreed, continuing his very particular skin-care routine.
“Sweet,” Yugyeom said happily. "I’m free this weekend, you?”
Myungho looked at Yugyeom through the mirror, frowning. “We have a midterm next week.”
“We have a midterm!?”
He did, in fact, have a midterm. One that he had to study extremely hard for in order to get a decent grade with the short amount of time he had.
So he is, for a lack of a better phrase, pretty damn dead when he leaves the exam hall and makes his way over to the closest coffee stand. He doesn’t drink coffee, fuck no, but after batting his eyelashes at the employee during freshman year, they decided to add iced chocolate to the menu.
And it was a hit.
One of Yugyeom’s biggest accomplishments if he could say so himself.
It’s cold out, colder than he was expecting, so he hugs his jacket closer to his chest as he waits for his turn. He wiggles his feet every few seconds to keep his toes from freezing over and he’s probably looking at least a little bit stupid but at least there’s blood in his toes.
“Do your feet hurt?”
Yugyeom wheels around, body nearly colliding into Bambam’s.
Bambam clearly has a better grasp of the weather, wearing a coat much bigger than Yugyeom’s and are those UGGs on his feet? Lucky bastard.
“Oh, no, they don’t hurt.” He looks down at his converse chucks. They definitely won’t be much help this winter. “They’re freezing. Just trying to keep the blood flowing.”
“Ahh,” Bambam says. He then, too, wiggles his foot. “Smart move.”
Yugyeom laughs, wiggling their feet together. “How, uh, how’ve you been?”
“Pretty good! Just got out of an exam and I think it went alright, you?”
“Same, but I don’t feel too great about it,” Yugyeom grimaces
“Ah, shit, man,” Bambam says in English. “Was it an English exam?”
“Not even,” Yugyeom mutters, taking a step forward in line. “That’s coming up too, though.” He scratches his head, trying to remember the date but coming up empty. “At least, I think it’s coming up.”
Bambam chuckles. “What’s your major?”
“Dance,” Yugyeom smiles. “You?”
“Foreign language and culture,” Bambam says, equally smiley.
“Woah,” Yugyeom exclaims, impressed. “Isn’t that hard—”
“Hey, kid, are you gonna order or what?”
Yugyeom definitely hadn’t noticed that everyone in front of him got their drinks. He gives Bambam an awkward grin before turning to the employee.
“An iced choco, please.” Then, he bites his lip as he looks over his shoulder. “Um, what do you drink?”
Bambam quickly shakes his head. “Oh, you don’t have to pay for me—”
“I want to,” Yugyeom says gently. The flush on his cheeks was caused by the cold, okay? “What would you like?”
Bambam’s own cheeks turn a shade pinker, too. He laughs behind his hand. “I always get the sweetest shit they have.”
Yugyeom tells the employee: “An iced choco and the sweetest shit you have, please.”
That earns him a smack to his arm and Bambam’s cute laugh. Worth it.
Soon enough, his iced choco and whatever cavity-creating garbage Bambam wanted are pushed into his hands. Yugyeom carefully hands Bambam’s over and tries very hard not to blush even further at the way their fingers touch.
“Why did you ask for a cold drink?” Bambam asks, sipping on his very much hot drink.
Yugyeom shrugs. He prefers it cold, but he knows it’s a strange move. His fingers are about to fall off. “Sacrifices.”
Bambam snickers, revealing a beautiful set of white teeth. Yugyeom has no clue how they can possibly stay that white if this is the shit he drinks.
“Do you want to go sit somewhere?” Yugyeom asks, the cold weather seeping inside his bones. There’s a cloud of air when he speaks. “And, uh, preferably inside.”
Bambam pouts. “Sorry.. I have to be somewhere soon.” He raises his arm to check his watch, then looks up at Yugyeom with a small smile. “Actually, nevermind. I have time. Where do you wanna go?”
Yugyeom tries his best to not let his excitement show too much. “Maybe we can just chill in the cafeteria for a while?”
Bambam agrees.
He learns quite a few things about Bambam, like that they’re the same age, moved to Korea to study and lives with four cats.
Yugyeom curses his cat allergy. Bambam playing with four of them has to be really cute to watch, but so is Yugyeom playing with the dog he and his brother adopted not too long ago. Bambam could watch him instead.
“How did you end up joining the club?” Yugyeom asks, chewing on his straw.
“I met— wait, do you know Jackson-hyung?”
Boy does Yugyeom know him.
Because Yugyeom and Jinyoung’s moms are friends, they’ve been going to family birthday parties since they were little. And ever since Jinyoung met Jackson, he’s been glued to Jinyoung’s side.
That meant that he was always at those parties too. Which were really less of a party and more of a big Bully Yugyeom fest, because Jackson loves teasing Yugyeom just as much as Jinyoung does.
It’s really fucking annoying.
“Hyung and I were talking about how Korean’s difficult and how most of our friends can’t really relate because they’re Korean,” Bambam explains. Yugyeom knows how that feels. Anytime he wants to complain about English to Mingyu, Mingyu suddenly speaks it perfectly. “So hyung thought, hey, why not start a club for foreigners at our uni so we can complain about Korean and hang out.”
“Woah…” Yugyeom says. “How many people are in it?”
Bambam blows out a breath. “Man, I’m not sure,” he says in English. “But, a lot. There’re quite a bit of Thai students actually.”
“That must be nice.”
“It is,” Bambam agrees with a big smile on his face. “The club also helps with other languages, so that’s awesome.” Then he falls into a story of how he learned each of his languages, and Yugyeom rests his chin on his hand as he listens.
He really likes Bambam’s voice, and the accent and the random English words he plops into his sentences add to his charm. He talks with huge amounts of enthusiasm, hand gestures, lots of sheepish laughter and really lame jokes.
Yugyeom could talk to him forever.
“We have an English Club too, you know?” Bambam says, catching Yugyeom off guard.
“Hm? English Club?”
“Well, it’s not really a club but I tutor English with my hyung Mark every week,” Bambam explains. “We also go out to eat sometimes. It’s fun. Instead of complaining about Korean, everyone complains about English there. Maybe you wanna join?”
Though the idea of hearing Bambam’s Teacher Voice again makes him want to say yes immediately, he has about 5000 won to his name, and considering he just paid for both his and Bambam’s drink, make that about 200.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bambam says with a wave of his hand. “You can just join.”
“No, no, that wouldn’t be fair—”
“You paid for my coffee,” Bambam reminds him, shaking his cup as a reminder.
Yugyeom bites back a smile. “I’ll make sure to buy you coffee more often then, as payment.”
Bambam clings their cups together. “Sounds like a deal,” he says in English.
Though Yugyeom has no idea what he just said, he nods.
The tutoring sessions are a lot less fun than Yugyeom expected, because there’s a lot more studying involved than he’d hoped.
All the students sit around a big, round table with their own homework, and when he doesn't understand something, he’s supposed to raise his hand.
But worst of all, he’s forced to ask all of his questions in English.
It would have been a living nightmare if Bambam wasn’t walking around the table in circles, answering all the questions with that goddamn teacher voice. Yugyeom melts into his chair a little.
It’s a dilemma. He can either: not ask questions at all so the other students think he’s pretty good at English, or: ask Bambam a ton of questions to keep him close.
He chooses the latter. He knows no one in this club so it’s not like he’s actively feeling embarrassed. And, besides, Bambam already knows he sucks. What does he have to lose?
So, for what feels like the 8th time in the past five minutes, Yugyeom raises his hand.
The problem with this strategy, though, is that there’s another tutor, Mark. Because of this, Yugyeom has to make sure to only raise his hand when Mark’s busy helping another student so Bambam can stride over instead.
Not that Yugyeom has any problem with Mark, he’s a chill guy, but he just isn’t Bambam.
It’s been a couple of weeks since he met Bambam now, which means he’s bought Bambam lots of drinks so far, and Yugyeom can confidently say that he’s having a BBB. Big Bambam Breakdown.
Myungho rolls his eyes. “Just ask him out.”
Yugyeom paces around their room. “I feel like it’s too late for that now.”
“Why’s that?”
Yugyeom groans. His crush is growing bigger and bigger every day but he feels like he’s pushed himself into the friend-zone by not making a move earlier.
“I don’t think so,” Myungho says, running a comb through his hair. “And considering I’m the one in a relationship, maybe that’s a sign to listen to me.”
Yugyeom freezes, gaping at his roommate. “You’re in a relationship!?”
Myungho looks dumbstruck, then throws his comb in Yugyeom’s direction. “Yah! I have been since last year!”
Yugyeom doesn’t manage to dodge that comb.
What he also doesn’t manage to dodge is the reminder that he clearly hasn’t improved much on his Paying More Attention goal.
“Who?”
“What do you mean who? Junhwi-hyung obviously,” Myungho grumbles.
Yugyeom’s jaw drops.
“Wait,” Myungho says, still confused. “Why do you act so surprised? You’ve literally seen us kiss.”
Actually, Yugyeom pushed that from his brain.
He was completely involuntarily subjected to that kiss, but it was mostly his own fault. In his defense, though, Myungho could have let him know he was having someone over even if Yugyeom was supposed to be in class.
His lecture wasn’t canceled or anything but Yugyeom really wasn’t feeling it that day, so he decided to head back to his room to sleep off his headache.
But the pain behind his eyes increased tenfold when he opened the door to see two people sitting behind Myungho’s desk.
“Oh.” Yugyeom grinned awkwardly at the door. “Hello.”
The guy who wasn’t Myungho offered a small, shy wave. “Hi.”
Myungho put the guy’s hand down grumpily. “Shouldn’t you be in class?” he said, glaring at Yugyeom for reasons he hadn’t understood at the time.
Turned out, he totally love-blocked them.
“Got a headache,” Yugyeom groaned, dropping his bag and taking off his jacket.
“You’re a headache,” Myungho mumbled under his breath, earning a small shove from the guy next to him.
Taking a closer look, Yugyeom noticed they were sharing the chair. Better said, Myungho sat about halfway on his lap with an arm around his back.
“Wait,” Myungho said as Yugyeom started taking off his shoes. “You’re gonna stay here?”
Yugyeom raised an eyebrow. “This is my room, no?” He took a step back, checking the room number. There was obviously no use for that as his key worked and all his stuff was right in front of him. This was very clearly his room.
Myungho heaved a sigh and Yugyeom watched him get off the other dude’s lap.
“I’m Moon Junhwi by the way,” he told Yugyeom as Myungho pushed him towards the door.
Yugyeom pointed to himself. “Kim Yugyeom.”
“Oh, believe me, I know that,” he laughed. Myungho instantly smacked him for that, saying something to him in Chinese that made Junhwi laugh even more.
Myunhgo handed Junhwi his shoes and the smile Junhwi gave him was full of affection. Myunhgo even helped him put his jacket back on.
And then, just before he was about to leave, Junhwi pressed a quick kiss to Myungho’s mouth.
Thinking about it now, Yugyeom should have definitely known they were in a relationship.
“Do you have a question?”
Yugyeom nearly falls off the chair at the sound of Bambam’s voice and has to hold onto the edge of the table for dear life.
Bambam laughs. “Jesus. How badly were you zoned-out?”
Yugyeom ignores the looks the other students in the English Club Not Really A Club shoot his way. “Pretty badly, I guess. Sorry.”
“No worries.” Bambam folds his arms on the tabletop and crouches down so he’s at eye-level with Yugyeom. “Did you have a question, though?”
“Uh.”
Bambam leans his cheek on his hand. His eyes sparkle mischievously like he somehow knows that he’s making Yugyeom kind of really nervous. “You raised your hands.”
Yugyeom feels his ears burn. “Oh. Sorry.”
Bambam chuckles. “How’s it going?”
Bambam told the group to write about what they’ll be doing during the weekend, but Yugyeom’s page is very much blank. He turns the laptop so Bambam can see his screen. “Does this answer your question?”
“It does,” Bambam snorts. “We can work on it together. Tell me in Korean, what are you gonna do this weekend?”
That’s the other reason his page is still empty. He has nothing planned. He doesn’t even have any studying to do, not that he knows how to say that in English, but it would have at least been something.
He scratches his eyebrow. “I don’t have any plans.”
“Okay,” Bambam says, “then let’s make plans.”
Yugyeom makes a noise like he’s being strangled. Is Bambam suggesting… or is Yugyeom looking too far into it?
“Like, you could pretend you’ll go see a movie or something,” Bambam continues.
Still thinking that Bambam is suggesting they’re doing this together, Yugyeom nods. He doesn’t even like going to the movies, but he’ll agree to anything.
Bambam could invite him to go eat bricks together and Yugyeom would say yes.
“Do you know how to say that?”
He shakes his head, sheepish.
So Bambam starts explaining which tense to use, which words fit the sentence well and even types it out for Yugyeom to read along.
Yugyeom hates to admit that he’s not listening. All he can think about is how to turn this into actually asking Bambam out. He has no idea if Bambam is even interested in guys, or him for that matter, but if he isn’t then Yugyeom still wants him as a friend.
He turns to the screen and reads what he assumes is something along the lines of going to the cinema this weekend.
Obviously, he wants to impress Bambam. Now, he knows perfectly well he’s never gonna impress Bambam with his English skills, but he can try.
So, with the tiniest English voice, he goes: “Us?”
Bambam whips his head around. “Eh?”
Yugyeom gulps. “Us … go … movies?” He cringes at his own inability to say a normal English sentence.
That mischievous glint in Bambam’s eyes sparkles brightly. “You want to go see a movie together?” he asks in English, a smirk on his lips.
Yugyeom nods. “Yes … together.”
Bambam stands up. Yugyeom follows his movements with his eyes but almost falls off his chair again when Bambam leans towards his ear. “If you can ask me that in a correct English sentence, I’ll think about it.”
Yugyeom may or may not be internally somersaulting and cartwheeling in glee. He stands a chance!
He reaches for his phone, but Bambam beats him to it. He shakes up a disapproving finger. “Without the help of the internet, Yugyeom-ah.”
All glee leaves his body. This is one hell of a set-up.
Bambam can clearly tell that Yugyeom isn’t going to ask Mark to translate it for him, because that would be really fucking embarrassing. And, well, Mark is kind of intimidating sometimes.
He gives Yugyeom one last look before helping someone on the opposite end of the table, but Yugyeom swears Bambam winked at him.
“Hyung!” Yugyeom squeaks when Jinyoung opens the door to his apartment.
Jinyoung squints at him.
“I need your help,” Yugyeom says innocently, putting on his best smile.
“If you came to beg for food again I swear I’ll—”
“I didn’t.” He walks past Jinyoung and into the apartment. In order to please his hyung a little, he asks, “Is that a new painting?”
“No.”
“Is Jaebeom-hyung here?”
“This is a studio apartment. If he was here, you would have seen him.”
“Jeez, just asking,” Yugyeom mutters, his hands raised in defense. “Who spat in your coffee?”
Jinyoung scrubs a hand over his face. “Sorry, bad morning. What do you need, Yugyeom-ah?”
“How do I say ‘Do you want to go see a movie with me?’ in English?” Yugyeom asks, throwing himself on Jinyoung’s couch-also-bed.
“Did your phone break?”
“No.”
“Did the uni campus wifi suddenly stop working?”
“No.”
Jinyoung raises his eyebrows even further. “Just look it up then.”
Yugyeom groans, taking one of the pillows and putting it in his lap. “I want to ask Bambam out but—”
That startles a laugh out of Jinyoung. “Bambam?”
“Yes. Bambam,” he says firmly, offended. “What’s wrong with Bambam?”
Jinyoung shakes one of his hands while the other covers his mouth to hide his laughter. “Nothing, nothing.”
“I met him some weeks ago,” Yugyeom says, putting his chin on the pillow.
Jinyoung sits down on the bed as well.
Yugyeom hands him a pillow and Jinyoung mimics the way Yugyeom’s sitting. It reminds Yugyeom of being little. Jinyoung’s known Yugyeom ever since he was born, and even though he’s three years older, they got along well. They only pretend that they don’t.
Yugyeom sees Jinyoung as a grumpy older brother, because just like an older brother, you have no choice in who your younger brother is gonna be and Jinyoung would have definitely not picked Yugyeom.
“So you like him?”
“Yeah,” Yugyeom admits easily. “I’ve wanted to ask him out since we met but chickened out each time. I’ve even joined his English tutoring sessions just to see him.”
This earns him another laughing fit. “You sure are desperate,” Jinyoung says in between laughter.
“Hyung,” Yugyeom whines, shaking his body like a little kid. “You know damn well I could use those sessions anyway.”
“Sure, but you’re clearly not paying attention.”
“Hyung,” Yugyeom whines again. “All those years you were pining for Jaebeom-hyung I didn’t say a word and now you treat me like this.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Jinyoung says but the grin on his face tells Yugyeom he definitely isn’t sorry. “What was that about the movies or something?”
Yugyeom sighs. “I want to ask Bambam out to see a movie with me but he’s making me do it in English and he told me not to look it up on the internet. Little does he know that if I did look it up I probably wouldn’t remember it anyway.”
Jinyoung hums. “So he’s making you work for it.”
“And I want to put in the work,” Yugyeom insists. “I really like him, hyung.”
Jinyoung gives Yugyeom’s shoulder a playful shove.
Yugyeom wrinkles his nose. “What?”
“It’s cute. He talks about you a lot, now that I think about it.”
His eyebrows skyrocket. “Say what now?”
“I take it you’re familiar with the Foreigners Club and that I’m in it?”
Yugyeom nods.
“We talk pretty often,” Jinyoung says. “He knows that we know each other, so sometimes he asks how you’re doing or when we go do something as a group, he asks if you were there, if you’d liked it or if you’d been good at it. Stuff like that.”
Yugyeom’s heart swells. “So you think he might like me back?”
“Yeah.”
“Then please, please teach me how to ask him out in English,” Yugyeom begs, grabbing Jinyoung’s arms.
“Calm down,” Jinyoung says, prying Yugyeom off of him. “I don’t think you want to go see a movie with him, though.”
“Why not?”
“He has no attention span, he’ll definitely go looking for trouble,” Jinyoung replies, then looks Yugyeom up and down. “You know what, he’s a perfect match for you. He seems to like a lot of things you like, so I’d ask him out to do something you like.”
He considers that. “Do you think he’d want to just order food and hang out in my room?”
“You know he has an apartment to himself right?”
Yugyeom makes a disapproving noise, pulling his hands over his heart. “Can’t believe you forgot about my cat allergy, hyung!”
Jinyoung rolls his eyes before getting off the bed. Yugyeom watches as he walks towards the kitchen, opens a cabinet and takes something out. He only realizes what it is until he catches it, because Jinyoung threw it at his head.
“Allergy pills,” he reads. He looks back up at Jinyoung.
“Jaebeom-hyung has five cats,” Jinyoung grouses. “ Five . I can’t stay the night without these. You can take a few if you want.”
“Oh, thanks.” Yugyeom takes out five and puts them in his pocket. “But because I’m asking him out, it should be where I live.”
Jinyoung grimaces. “Don’t think your roommate will appreciate being sexiled.”
“Sexil— what the hell!” Yugyeom screeches. “We’re not gonna have sex on the first date, you caveman!”
Jinyoung shrugs. “Bambam’s wild, Yugyeom-ah. I can’t read him.”
“Well, I definitely don’t plan on doing any of that on the first date,” Yugyeom says, cheeks burning. “Besides, he hasn’t even agreed to go out.”
Jinyoung waves him off. “He will.”
“Not if I don’t learn how to ask him.” He pumps his fist into the air. “Lez get it .”
“Myungho-yah!” Yugyeom says as Myungho walks into their room. “How were your classes?”
“Uh, fine?” he says as he toed off his shoes. “Why are you so chipper?”
Yugyeom flashes him a smile. “I have a favor to ask you.”
His roommate, not even knowing what the favor is, pulls a face. “Oh no.”
“Yah…” Yugyeom put his hands on his hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Myungho gives him a blank look. “Last time you asked me for a favor you nearly set my bed on fire.”
Yugyeom hisses at the memory. Definitely not one of his finest moments.
“No fire this time,” Yugyeom assures him. “I’ll even turn off the heater if that makes you feel better!”
“You’ll freeze to death.”
“A win for you!” Yugyeom points out with his thumbs up.
Myungho laughs at that, shaking his head at Yugyeom’s ridiculousness.
“I don’t even know when or if it’ll happen but,” Yugyeom starts, looking away from his roommate, “if I asked you to stay with your boyfriend for a night—”
“You are not having sex in here.”
“No!” Yugyeom yells. “Jesus. Why is everyone’s head in the gutter? I just wanna hang out and order some food. I don’t want to disturb you and I don’t want me and Bambam to get distu—”
“Oooh,” Myungho says, interested all of a sudden. “Bambam. You’re bringing him here for a date?” He scans Yugyeom’s side of the room. “You better clean up then.”
“He’s already seen what it looks like!” Yugyeom says in defense. “But yes, if I’d hypothetically invite Bambam over for a date, would you leave?”
“I will.” He points at the mess on Yugyeom’s side of the room. “But only if you promise to clean up.”
Yugyeom shoots him finger guns. “You got it!”
Do you want to go on a date with me?
Yes? Great! Want to order pizza and chill in my room?
These are the two sentences he’d been repeating to himself every single day until Friday rolled around for his weekly English tutoring session. He felt incredibly confident, 100% sure he was gonna nail it.
Myungho was close to killing him because he kept saying them out loud over and over again, but Myungho wanting to kill him was nothing new.
But his confidence evaporates when he looks inside the classroom.
Everyone’s there, except for Bambam.
Yugyeom’s just standing there, in the doorway, scanning the room for a glimpse of Bambam while everyone’s staring at him.
“Yugyeom-ah,” Mark says, sitting on the Big Teacher chair. Then in English: “Are you gonna come in?”
Yugyeom gulps. He hates this English-talk-only rule. “Uh, where, uh, where is Bambam?”
He hopes Bambam’s just in the bathroom or even later than Yugyeom already is.
Mark purses his lips. “Sick,” he says. Something tugs at Yugyeom’s heart at the idea of Bambam being ill. “It’s just me today.”
Oh. Well that sure ruins his plans.
Still standing in the entryway, Yugyeom considers his options. Though he could definitely use a session without Bambam to distract him, it’s gonna be no fun. And, well, he’s probably gonna just be sulking the whole hour.
Awkwardly, he beckons Mark to come to him. He doesn’t need the entire class to hear what he’s about to ask. But Mark, being the sadist he is, stays put.
He flashes Yugyeom a grin. “Come here,” he says in English.
Yugyeom hesitates. “Here … please. ”
The fact Yugyeom said that in English must have been enough for Mark to listen.
“What is Bambam’s address?” Yugyeom asks once he’s dragged Mark into the hall. He doesn’t want any of the other students to overhear his desperate measures to ask Bambam out.
“I just told you he’s sick..? ”
“I’ll go make him better.”
“With what? Your dick?”
Yugyeom splutters, blushing violently. “What the hell is wrong with you people!? No! With, I don’t know, soup or something! He lives with four cats and they can’t make soup.”
“Oh, they can’t?” Mark teases.
“They can’t, but I can.” Big lie. The only thing he knows how to make is ramen. “Will you please give me his address?”
It takes a second for Mark to agree. “Okay, I’ll give it to you. But,” he says, “don’t bring him soup. He doesn’t like store-bought soup.”
“Got it. No soup,” Yugyeom says with a nod. He plucks his phone from his pocket, unlocks it and hands it to Mark. “You can just type it in the Notes app or something.”
Almost immediately, Mark chuckles.
Yugyeom cranes his neck to see what’s so funny.
“You’re cute, Yugyeom-ah,” Mark grins. Then, in what’s probably supposed to be an imitation of Yugyeom’s voice, he reads out the sentences Yugyeom memorized.
It definitely doesn’t help that Yugyeom named that folder How To Ask Bambam Out In English.
“Hyung,” he complains. “Don’t read that.”
“Bam’s definitely gonna say yes, by the way,” he says as he gives Yugyeom back his phone. “He talks about you all the time. ‘Isn’t Yugyeom cute when he speaks English? The shirt Yugyeom wore today was really nice, wasn’t it? I hope Yugyeom won’t see a hairdresser for a while cos I like his hair like this’ and so on.”
Yugyeom’s face gets more red with each sentence Mark reveals, and he reaches for the back of his neck. Myungho inspired him to grow somewhat of a mullet, and apparently it’s working. He’ll send him a gift basket.
“You’re gonna skip the session, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” Yugyeom says without hesitation. “No offense.”
Mark raises his hands. “None taken. Go get your date.”
As soon as Yugyeom leaves the building, he opens his chat with Youngjae. If anyone should know anything about how to cure sickness it should be the embodiment of the sun.
To: 333cyj333
Hyung, what do you bring someone who’s sick?
From: 333cyj333
Soup
To: 333cyj333
Right
But what do you bring someone who’s sick that doesn’t like soup?
From: 333cyj333
Health? ㅋㅋㅋ
He sighs. Nevermind, Youngjae’s just as useless.
Yugyeom has no idea how to cook, and it’s not like he can magically whip something up by the sheer motivation of Bambam being sick. Maybe he should buy him something healthy to drink? Like, orange juice or something. Something that has vitamins.
So, at the 7-Eleven he passes on the way to the bus stop, he buys a bottle of orange juice and a Nesquik juice box. He chews on the straw as he waits for the bus to come.
Bambam wasn’t lying when he said he lived pretty far from campus, but Yugyeom doesn’t mind the trip. He hasn’t been to this part of town in a while anyway.
Once he’s on the bus, he’s too giddy to sit down. With the way the weather’s dropped over the past few days, Yugyeom wouldn’t be surprised if Bambam got a cold. He hopes it’s not a fever.
After fifteen minutes of standing around and getting weird looks, he decides to just sit down.
He opens the Notes folder he spent hours staring at, and it’s getting more and more real with every minute that passes. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest on the way to the English tutoring session, afraid Bambam’s rejection would end his life.
Maybe it still will, who knows?
But hearing both Jinyoung and Mark say Bambam talks about him definitely spiked his confidence. He wonders if he talks about Bambam a lot. Myungho would probably know if he asked.
He wants this to be a surprise, but the intercom would obviously ruin it. So, to solve this problem, he presses a random button and waits patiently for the person to pick up.
He hears a beep.
“Hello,” Yugyeom says in his sweet-talk voice. “Sorry to bother you, but my name is Kim Yugyeom and I want to surprise my friend who’s sick. Could you maybe open the door for me so it can stay a surprise? I’d really appreciate it.”
A bead of silence follows.
“Yugyeom, this is Bambam.”
Yugyeom’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. He squints at the number he pressed and slaps himself when, yeah, that’s Bambam’s apartment number. Goddammit.
“Can you see me right now?” Yugyeom asks, looking around for any cameras.
“Yep.”
When he finally finds it, he juts out his bottom lip. “Can you see my pout?”
“The camera’s not that good,” Bambam laughs.
“Well, just know I’m pouting.”
“There’s no need to pout.”
“Yes, there is. The surprise is ruined.”
“Not really, I was definitely surprised when I saw it was you.”
“But I didn’t see your reaction.”
“I’ll pretend to be surprised when you come up.”
And Yugyeom’s heart nearly explodes at the sight of a blanket-wrapped Bambam with four little cats sitting protectively at his feet. He definitely looks worse for wear, but still manages to be pretty. His hair is still up in a bun, probably the most convenient way to style it, but he’s wearing no make-up or contacts.
Yugyeom likes his natural eye-color the most anyway.
Bambam gasps in mock-surprise. “Yugyeom-ah!? Woah. I had no idea you were coming. What’s that?”
“Mark said you didn’t like soup so I brought orange juice?”
“Sweet.” He grimaces. “I’m really gross right now, though.”
“I don’t mind!” Yugyeom says immediately. “Um, I mean, you’ve seen my side of the room. Gross doesn’t even cover it. I’m fine with gross. I like gross.”
Bambam snorts fondly. “Do you wanna come in?”
Yugyeom doesn’t want anything else. “Yeah, it’s kinda cold out here. Only if you’re fine with it, though.”
Bambam flashes him a soft smile. “Yep, please come in.”
He watches Bambam shuffle into his apartment with his four cats in tow. Yugyeom has to admit they’re cute, even if the hairless one kind of scares him.
The apartment is really nice. A bit like Jinyoung’s, but slightly bigger.
Definitely the cleanest space Yugyeom’s seen in a while.
Bambam moves towards the couch. The blanket drags on the floor behind him and that should definitely be gross, especially with all the cat hair lying around, but Yugyeom finds it stupidly endearing.
Yugyeom feels the weight of the bag in his hand. “Do you want some of the orange juice now?”
Bambam hums, pushing himself further into the blanket.
“Where can I find some cups?”
“Cabinet above the fridge.”
During his quest to find them, he asks, “What got you sick, you think?”
“The bubonic plague.”
Yugyeom laughs. “I doubt that.”
“I never lie,” Bambam says firmly. “The Black Death has come for me.”
Yugyeom smiles privately once he finds the cups and pours some juice for both himself and the plague-sufferer. He’s glad his dorm room doesn’t have a kitchen, because it would not have looked as clean as Bambam’s. He and Myungho just have joint custody over a microwave.
“Do you want anything to eat?” Yugyeom watches Bambam’s blanket fort shake. He’s taking that as a no.
It’s not like he could have made anything anyway. They would have had to order it.
On his way back to the couch, Yugyeom passes a bunch of framed pictures of people he doesn’t recognize, probably family members, and smiles at the ones with a much younger version of Bambam on them.
As soon as he sat down, a single hand peeks out from the blankets to hold the juice and Yugyeom notices that Bambam’s painted his nails black. He hands Bambam the cup and watches him take a big gulp like he’s been starved from any sort of liquid for days.
“Are you dehydrated?” Yugyeom asks worriedly.
Bambam doesn’t answer, just leans forward to place the now empty cup on the side table. “Not sure if that’s a symptom of the plague, but I sure was thirsty.”
Yugyeom rolls his eyes, amused. “I was never great at history, but you definitely don’t have the plague. It’s probably the common cold, no?”
Bambam curls further into his blanket, head almost disappearing. He looks a little like an old Russian lady like this.
“Would you like some more juice?”
“Nah,” Bambam says. “That was just enough. Thanks, Gyeom-ah, you didn’t need to do that.”
Yugyeom hadn’t noticed the army of cats that had formed around him, staring at him with apprehensive eyes. Did they know? Could they smell his affection for Bambam? They don’t look pleased, if anything.
“They’re, uh, cute,” Yugyeom croaks out, trying to pet one. It scurries away immediately. Message received.
“My sons,” Bambam says in English, looking fondly at his pets. The one Yugyeom tried to pet climbs onto Bambam’s lap and lies down.
“What’re their names?”
“This is King,” Bambam says. That one is definitely the cutest of the bunch. It’s small, gray and soft looking.
“What about them?” Yugyeom asks, pointing at the two white ones.
“Pudding and Cupcake,” Bambam says, grinning at the cats who perked up at their names. “And that is Latte,” he continues. Yugyeom obviously didn’t need to guess which one that was. “Latte, come here.”
The naked cat jumps on the couch, climbs up the back and settles on Bambam’s blanket-covered shoulder.
Yugyeom takes a sip of the juice, then remembers he doesn’t even fucking like orange juice. He tries not to pull a face. “You speak Korean to them?”
“I was afraid that if I spoke to them in Thai or English they wouldn’t understand the vet.”
Yugyeom didn’t think he could grow any fonder of Bambam, but here he is proving Yugyeom wrong. “That’s adorable,” he admits out loud, affection dripping from his words.
“What about you? You said your brother has a dog, right? Do you have a picture?”
Boy does he have a picture. His brother is obsessed with taking as many pictures as possible. Yugyeom’s entire Instagram page is basically just him and Dalkyum.
Yugyeom hands his phone to Bambam. “His name is Dalkyum.”
A grin adorns his face. “He looks like you.”
Yugyeom cocked his head. “Is that a good thing?”
“Of course. He’s cute.”
Yugyeom feels heat rise to his face. “Are you saying I’m cute?”
Bambam gives him a look that reads duh. He clicks on a new photo and laughs. “He blends in with your hair here.”
He shows Yugyeom the screen; a picture of a sleeping Yugyeom with a happy-looking Dalkyum sitting on his head.
“Wait,” Bambam says suddenly, eyes wide as he zooms in on the pic. “You have a tattoo?”
“Oh.” Yugyeom might have forgotten he was also very much shirtless in that pic. “Uh, yeah. I have quite a few, actually.”
“Awesome, man,” Bambam says in English as he hands Yugyeom back his phone. “Me too.”
That sends a sense of relief down his spine. “Really? Where are—” he cuts himself out with a loud sneeze.
Bambam gasps and shuffles further away. “You’ve contracted it! Oh, what do we do!? The Black Death has reached you!”
Yugyeom wrinkles his nose. That doesn't make sense. His immune system is kind of crazy good, he barely ever got sick.
And then it dawned on him.
The cats.
How could he have possibly forgotten about his cat allergy in an apartment with four of them?
“No, it’s—” he awkwardly points at the cat at his foot.
“Oh,” Bambam says sadly. “I forgot about that.”
“Same… Jinyoung-hyung gave me some pills but I lost them.”
Bambam snorts. “How do you lose pills?”
“I, uh, accidentally left them in my pocket and washed the jeans.”
The sound of laughter fills the room and Yugyeom watches Bambam cover his mouth. Yugyeom doesn’t understand why he would do that, he’s so beautiful when he laughs. So he randomly blurts out: “I like your laugh.”
Bambam instantly stops laughing, looking at Yugyeom with wide eyes. “You like my laugh?”
Yugyeom feels like a child caught playing on their DS way past their bedtime.
“Uh, I mean, I— you know.” He gulps. Now is the time to confess. Yugyeom did not spend days trying to memorize how to ask Bambam out just to chicken out now.
“Yes. I like your laugh,” he admits, and it feels good to say. Feeling even bolder all of a sudden, he adds, “I like it a lot, actually.”
Bambam looked kind of pale before, but his face finally got some color. “Really?”
“I like a lot of things about you,” Yugyeom says, feeling his own cheeks go pink too. “I memorized some English lines because you told me to ask you in—”
“Wait. You memorized them?” Bambam asks, surprised. “You really practiced just for me?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I really like you,” Yugyeom admits with a sheepish chuckle.
This is the right moment. He’s going to recite them now, impress Bambam, and plan the date together.
But as he goes to search for the sentences at the back of his mind, he finds nothing. What the fuck?
“Did you forget them? I couldn’t see your pout through the camera but I can definitely see it now.”
Yugyeom lets out a frustrated whine. “This is so annoying! I swear I practiced them really hard! Mark-hyung even saw them and laughed at me.”
Bambam smiles. “Can I see them?”
Yugyeom hands him his phone again, and Bambam’s smile grows fonder with each second he’s reading them. “I thought you wanted to ask me to the movies?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like going to the movies much and Jinyoung-hyung told me you don’t either. I thought it would be nicer to just, I don’t know, hang out in my room and order food?”
“You know, even if you had asked me to the movies, I would have still said yes.” Bambam laughs. “Actually, you could invite me to go eat bricks and I would agree.”
Yugyeom jaw drops, because he’d once told himself the exact same thing.
And it’s in that moment, as they laugh together, that he finally understands what Myungho meant when he said Bambam was his kind of weird.
He’s perfect for Yugyeom.