Chapter Text
Colourful decorations transforming the streets, live music that lightened the atmosphere, and an overflowing amount of people wearing bright smiles on their faces, proud to celebrate who they were — everything was lovely, and Joochan wasn’t sure why he never thought of attending pride sooner. He figured he owed Jangjun one for dragging him along.
“Speaking of that kid…” Joochan muttered to himself, scanning across the crowd. They arrived together not too long ago, but he already took off to woo people. So much for promising that he would show Joochan around since it was his first time there...
Joochan couldn’t blame Jangjun, though. There were some pretty cute guys around.
Joochan looked around him, taking in the sight once again. The knowledge that everyone there was part of the same community gave him a sense of comfort. Some people were with their partners, a few were roaming around on their own and others were chattering happily with their friends. Then he realised that one was now standing beside him, supposedly waiting for the chance to say something.
“Hey.” A boy carefully tapped Joochan’s left shoulder, startling him slightly. Joochan turned to face him, and the boy flashed a smile. “Did you come alone?”
“Oh, hey.” Joochan waved awkwardly. It’s not that he’s an awkward person — he’s far from that, really — but no one ever warned him about being randomly approached by strangers. At least he didn’t expect that it would actually happen to him.
Joochan found himself looking up to the taller boy. Dark hair and eyes, presumably around the same age as him. His outfit wasn’t as bright or flashy as most other people, save for his wristband and temporary face tattoo, both with colours of the bi flag. And speaking of his face — boy, was he pretty.
Now that’s what Joochan calls a cute guy.
“I came with a friend, but he ditched me to go and… I don’t know. Find hot guys or something.” Joochan eventually responded after getting used to (read: admiring) the sudden company. “And you?”
“My friends are still watching the parade. Not sure why they didn’t want to get snacks with me, but that’s their loss.” The boy lightly shook the bucket of snacks he was holding.
“They didn’t want snacks?!” Joochan’s eyes widened in shock. “Yeah, I think you’re the winner here.”
The boy just laughed, taking another bite of his fries. He offered some to Joochan too, to which he happily agreed.
For a moment, no words were being exchanged between them. Not even their names. Just fries.
Joochan assumed the guy (who he now labelled as the cute-fries-bi) just wanted to keep him company since he was alone for a while now. Thanks, cute-fries-bi. But Joochan realises it probably wasn’t the most considerate thing to do to be silently taking fries away from someone he just met.
“Okay, but do they have fried chicken too?”
Joochan nearly thought he said something wrong, because the cute-fries-bi just looked at Joochan with amusement. It was almost as if he never heard someone’s tone brighten over the thought of fried chicken.
To Joochan's delight, he was brought to the snack stalls that were a quick walk away from where they were. Fast forward to a couple of minutes later, and he was happily eating his chicken while the other boy just watched and smiled. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be embarrassed that he was munching away in front of someone who didn’t know his impressive eating habits, but he felt comfortable enough with the company he had.
Joochan didn't make any plans to have entire conversations with people he met at pride, but he was glad it happened. He enjoyed being in the cute-fries-bi's presence, even though it mostly consisted of small talk and munching. Joochan didn’t know if it was just friendliness, but the boy seemed so bright and cheerful that Joochan unconsciously smiled back whenever he did.
Joochan was uncertain why, but he just liked it whenever he saw the other boy smile.
The two were heading back towards the parade, when someone ran towards them and playfully pushed the taller boy.
"There you are!" Someone, who Joochan assumed to be one of the cute-fries-bi’s friends, swung his arm around the boy’s shoulder. He pointed towards two others who were looking at them expectantly. "We should get going now."
“Guess I have to go.” The cute-fries-bi turned to Joochan and frowned, though his gloomy expression quickly changed into a huge grin. “It was nice talking to you!”
“Oh, and before I forget. I’m Bomin.” He winked cheekily, and Joochan swore he nearly felt his heart jump out of his chest.
“Oh, bye! I’m… Joochan.” Joochan trailed off, wondering whether Bomin could even hear him. His friends already dragged him off to walk a distance, with them shooting him suspicious looks and Bomin hurriedly waving them off. Joochan tried to figure out what was going on, but all he could make out was one of them screeching “ Bomin WINKED at him! ” as if he just made a discovery worthy of winning a Nobel Prize. Huh. Maybe he would understand what that implied if he thought harder, but his mind was still clouded with thoughts of what just happened.
Admittedly, they were mostly thoughts of the person himself.
Joochan placed his hand over his chest, feeling his own heartbeat as he watched Bomin walk out of sight.
“So this is how it feels.”
"Joochan, you know that isn't going to work." Jibeom looked over at his roommate's laptop screen, unimpressed.
"I'm out of ideas, okay!" Joochan retaliated, still focused on the screen.
"Yeah, but even I know typing who was the cute guy I met at pride in the Google search bar won't help." Jibeom deadpanned. Joochan glared at him momentarily, then let out a sigh.
“I guess you’re right.” Joochan closed the tab in defeat. “But only random people come up when I search his name! Gosh, why did everyone decide to name their children Bomin…”
“Search harder, then. You’ll find him.” Jibeom said, not sparing a second glance at Joochan.
Joochan mentally cursed Jibeom for making it sound so easy to find someone in the depths of the internet, but he figured Jibeom wasn’t wrong. Joochan sighed again, going for another long search.
Three days had passed since Joochan went to pride, yet he found himself still thinking of the boy he met. He told Jangjun about it after he managed to find him, and Jangjun insisted that he was whipped. Maybe it wasn't the best idea for Joochan to tell that someone who chatted others up during pride too.
Even though Joochan regretted not asking Bomin to exchange numbers with him, he took that as a sign that he should just go on with his life. But part of Joochan was bugging him not to stop there. After all, he was the one who already knew Bomin’s name and would be able to reach out. That, and Joochan couldn’t seem to get him out of his mind. Who even keeps thinking about someone who they met for barely an hour?
Perhaps Jangjun had a point.
After a while, Joochan got tired of dully scrolling through the searches. He probably just wasn’t doing this right. He turned to Jibeom, who was playing some games on his phone. “Do you have any ideas then?”
“Hmm…” Jibeom momentarily put down his phone to think. For someone who just dissed him, Joochan’s surprised he seemed serious about wanting to help. It was almost an honour that he actually paused his game for Joochan.
“Search up the event? I don’t know, maybe there’s somewhere where people post pictures of themselves at that specific parade.” Jibeom suggested after pondering over it.
Joochan took some time to process the information, pointing to his head out of habit. Then his eyes lit up. “Dude, you’re a genius!”
“Thank me later. Now go find that Bomin guy, I was playing my game...” Jibeom smiled in satisfaction, picking up his phone again.
Just as Jibeom mentioned, Joochan remembered that the organisers created a hashtag where people could post pictures of the event. Good for them for publicising aggressively enough to the point where the hashtag stuck to his head. Of course it wasn’t a given that everyone who attended the parade would post pictures of themselves so openly, but his gut feeling told him that he would be able to find Bomin there.
And he was right.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take Joochan much scrolling to find a familiar face. Four of them, in fact. His first instinct was to let out a shrill gasp, making Jibeom flinch. Then he tapped the picture and immediately zoomed in on Bomin’s face. There was one thing Joochan noticed — whether in real life or in pictures, this Bomin guy sure was cute as hell.
“00z at pride, huh…” Joochan breezed through the caption before immediately diverting his attention back to the picture. Now that he wasn't fixating his gaze, he realised they were all cute. Maybe men weren't so bad, he thought. Especially not Bomin.
One tap on the screen, and the tags reveal Bomin's account. Joochan taps once more, loading his profile.
Zero posts, yet thousands of followers. He's one of those guys, huh.
The next few taps were supposed to lead straight to his direct messages. But Joochan's suddenly anxious, worrying about what this would lead to, or whether he was being a creep for finding Bomin's account with just a first name.
"Just do it, Joochan. Are you going to stare at that screen for three days too?" Jibeom interrupted Joochan's train of thoughts. Jibeom earned his second glare of the day, though he couldn't care less. It just amused him how Joochan went from intense picture zooming to blank staring.
"Tsk. Fine." Joochan tutted. He's slightly ticked off that Jibeom kept being blunt in a situation he was new to, but that was the final push he needed. The push he needed to slide into his DMs.
Tap.
One short pause, followed by steady typing.
One sharp inhale.
Tap.
hongjo_ochan:
heyy
we met at pride, right?
One accomplishment down for Joochan. He sighed in relief, locking his phone screen and holding it to his chest.
Merely seconds passed, and he immediately regretted extending the "hey". Don't people say something about the number of y's having a meaning? Hopefully Bomin wouldn't overthink it, he thought.
Either way, overthinking it would probably lead him to the right conclusion.
In the meantime, Joochan decided to carry out his daily practice of idly scrolling his feed while lying down on his bed. The application was conveniently open for him to use anyway.
Joochan could spend hours scrolling Instagram if he wanted to. He was set out to achieve that once again, but his session was put to a halt when a particular notification dropped down on his screen.
bobobomin has followed you.