Chapter Text
The winter is only starting to show signs of ending when Yeosang picks up something from the street, just outside the building he lives in.
It’s a page torn out of a book, he can tell even before picking it up, a little moist in the corners. As he folds it open, he can see it’s from a history textbook, something about tea as a luxury item in Europe in the 17th century. Not the most intriguing topic, admittedly, but to treat one’s overpriced textbooks this way is just distasteful.
He doesn’t think too much of it as he folds the page again and slips it in his pocket. It looks like it was accidentally torn out, maybe someone was holding the book and it managed to slip out when they weren’t paying attention.
While Yeosang does keep the page, placing it on an empty spot on his bookshelf, he is quick to forget about it.
Until two weeks later.
Two weeks after the torn page, there is a package of chocolate chip cookies lying at the same exact spot on the pavement.
This is heresy of the direst degree. Who treats cookies like this? Yeosang scrunches his nose at the offensive sight.
He glances around quickly before bending over to pick up the package. By some miracle it’s still mostly intact, if a little beaten. Like it was dropped from somewhere. Yeosang looks up but there are no windows open on their building. Why would there be? It’s barely mid-March and the temperature is borderline freezing. No one in their right mind would keep a window open.
And no one in their right mind would treat precious chocolate chip cookies this poorly. Not even the cheapest ones in the store, Yeosang huffs in his mind as he opens the package. The cookies look still salvageable.
Finders keepers. At least he doesn’t have to go shopping for snacks today.
All the snow finally melts and actually stays gone. Instead they’re just cursed with continuous rains.
Yeosang keeps finding things from the exact same place where he first found the book page and the cookies.
One day there are several lip balms, one of them has lost its cap along the way. Yeosang pockets them as he hurries to catch the bus that will take him to his morning class.
The day after that he finds a sweatshirt bundled up into a ball. It’s actually a very nice shirt, colored a pretty baby blue, it looks comfortable and warm. And like it would fit Yeosang. Not that he would wear it, since it’s not his, and probably reeks of someone else’s sweat.
Or maybe not. It turns out to be clean (discounting all the dust it has gathered from the street, which is surprisingly not that much) when he inspects closer, like it came straight from someone’s closet. Looks like that someone just had an outfit crisis and hurled it out of the window. Yeosang bundles the shirt into his bag. If they throw it out like that, they probably won’t miss it.
It’s now that he is thoroughly convinced that the person doing this lives in the same building as he does. Everything he has picked up so far has been at the exact same spot on the pavement, give and take a couple centimeters. It would almost feel like a deliberate act, like some weird art installation, if it weren’t for the fact that most of the things could actually be something someone might toss out of the window in a fit of rage. And that no one would call a bundled sweatshirt dropped on wet sidewalk art.
Someone in his building has issues. But who?
Yeosang has to admit, he doesn’t really know his neighbors. He’s only seen a couple of them. The man who looks like an axe murderer right next door, who he has only briefly seen once or twice, but who apparently managed to unsettle Jongho, of all people, by his glare alone when they met in the stairway. The couple with two dogs so tiny that Yeosang is scared of getting too close to them and accidentally stepping on them. His other next door neighbors besides the Axe Murderer, who sometimes sing karaoke in the middle of the night... and during the day... all the time, actually, and he can hear them exceptionally well every time he goes to the bathroom. Then there’s the man on the other end of the first floor that always seems to be coming back from a smoke break whenever Yeosang sees him.
None of them seem to be a fitting culprit in this case, however. He can’t imagine any of them wearing the baby blue shirt that he threw over the back of a chair and that also seems to almost taunt him, tempting him to try it on every time he lays his eyes upon it.
So far, he has been successful in resisting the temptation, no matter how soft and comfortable it looks.
Three days after the sweatshirt he discovers a tv remote on the exact same spot when he’s coming back home from the university. It’s the first object he finds in pieces. He makes sure to collect all of them, even if he’s around 98% sure the remote will never work again even if he would put it back together.
The mystery neighbor will probably regret this one the most, he surmises as he makes sure he didn’t leave any pieces lying around. He’s surprised that the person isn’t here yet, either peering out from their window and screaming to leave their property alone, or rushing down to pick it up.
He half expects someone to run into him in the stairway. It doesn’t happen and he gets to return to his apartment with the broken remote and spend about 15 minutes piecing it back together.
Not that he’s going to do anything with it. And he can’t exactly return it since he doesn’t know which one of his neighbors is the one with anger issues.
So just like the book page and the lip balms, the remote ends up as a bookshelf decoration that Seonghwa asks about when he comes over the next day to pick him up for their planned bookstore odyssey.
”What are these?”
”Someone keeps dropping them on the street”, Yeosang shrugs, not looking up from his bag as he checks that he has his wallet with him.
”I’d return them, I guess, but I don’t know who’s doing it.”
Seonghwa’s shoulders shake with quiet laughter as he tries to poke Yeosang’s cheeks, but the younger is quick to dodge out of the way and escape to the door.
”Little kleptomaniac.”
”I literally just said I would return them if I knew who they belong to”, Yeosang huffs as he throws on his jacket.
He shows the usual spot to Seonghwa as they step out, but it’s empty this time. It’s still empty when they come back a few hours later with an impressive haul of books and very skinny wallets.
Yeosang is very surprised to see that for a week, there is nothing new for him to find.
Until April rolls around.
There is a mattress on the pavement.
A mattress. Thrown out of the window. This is really escalating. How serious fights are his neighbors having if it results in this? Yeosang can understand the tv remote, or the t-shirt, even the chocolate chip cookies (even though throwing those out of the window is a serious crime) but this is on a whole another level.
It is a very nice mattress, though, he assesses. Way too nice to leave to gather dust and block pedestrian passageways. And he has gathered everything else so far, so no need to break the chain now. It might not fit his apartment, though, so he might need to bring it to the basement instead...
As it turns out, in addition to being very nice, the mattress is also very heavy, and almost impossible to move off the spot alone, as Yeosang notices when he tries to lift it. And he hasn’t skipped a single arm or leg day, but this proves to be a challenge he can’t meet. Yet he continues his attempt, grateful that at least nobody’s around to witness it.
Or so he thinks.
”Oh, sweet. I thought I might need help with that.”
Yeosang freezes. Oh fuck . The owner of the mattress is here? Right as he was about to commit some diet thievery. Carefully, he looks up. Maybe he can claim that he was trying to move it out of the way.
He is very much not prepared to meet the eyes of an outrageously cute young man with fluffy looking hair that is colored in a peculiar shade of purple. He is even less prepared for the radiant, dimpled smile that greets him and causes his train of thought to crash into a wall.
”Um-” Yeosang tries and fails to get his tongue or mind to work as he slowly blinks.
”Hi”, the cute guy lifts his hand in greeting, unbothered by his silence, before stepping to take hold of the other end of the mattress.
”I came to take this back to our place. Do you mind helping a little?”
Oh, he’s not blaming Yeosang for trying to steal it. That’s a relief, at least.
”Uh, sure”, he finally replies, almost managing to sound nonchalant.
”Great, thanks!” the cute guy’s smile widens and becomes so radiant that for a moment Yeosang thinks it might be hazardous.
”Grab the other end, will you? We just need to get this to the elevator, I can take it from there.”
Yeosang does as instructed. Now that there’s two of them, the heavy mattress becomes marginally less heavy and considerably easier to maneuver, and it only takes them half a minute or so to carry it to the door and for the other man to punch in the code. From there, getting it to the elevator is easy.
”Thank you”, the cute guy says again as he presses the elevator button and they wait for it to arrive.
”I’m San, by the way. I live on the third floor.”
Yeosang nods in acknowledgment.
”Yeosang, first floor”, he introduces himself.
”Um, why was your mattress in the middle of the sidewalk? There’s been a lot of other stuff too...”
He thinks back to everything else he has picked up in the last months. Do they all belong to San? Does he miss them? Want them back? Well, he can’t give the cookies back and the remote might actually be beyond repair, but he does have all the pieces... and he probably doesn’t miss the lip balms. Now that he looks at it - as discreetly as humanly possible, of course - San’s lips look well moisturized, anyway.
”I’m cleaning up after my boyfriend, actually”, San replies, chuckling and shaking his head.
”He has the nasty habit of throwing stuff out of the window whenever he’s stressed... this morning was a bit of an overkill, as you can see.”
Yeosang blinks. A boyfriend. Of course, no one this cute could exist and not have a boyfriend. But-
”What kind of diet Hulk are you dating?” he spurts out before he can contain himself.
”You’re saying he just picked up your mattress and hurled it out of the window?”
The windows in their complex aren’t even big enough to fit a mattress without folding it a little, so the guy would have needed to do that and then push the whole thing out.
San seems to find the imagery just as hilarious, as he laughs.
”Wooyoung is dramatic like that”, he states.
”And then he whines and cries over losing the stuff he has thrown, because someone usually picks them up before he can get up and do it, and then they’re lost forever. He already lost our tv remote.”
Yeosang bites into his cheek. Perhaps he should come clean. San doesn’t seem to be too pressed about the subject, and it definitely would be the right thing to do.
The elevator arrives and they move the mattress in, San squeezing himself in with it.
”Thanks again, Yeosang.”
”No problem. Um”, Yeosang pauses, prompting San to press the button that makes the doors stay open and look at him quizzically, head tilted slightly.
”Yes?”
”I... I might have picked up some of the things that have been there”, Yeosang confesses.
”Including the remote. So if you want them back... I got them.”
San’s brows shoot up in surprise and a new smile quickly spreads on his face. Yeosang tries his best to quiet his internal screaming. There’s no way it is legal to look so attractive.
”You do? That’s incredible! Wooyoung has been crying after his things for god knows how long”, San says.
”I can swing by at some point to pick them up, if that’s okay with you?”
Yeosang nods, managing a small smile of his own.
”Sure. Apartment number five”, he replies.
”I’m usually home in the afternoon or evening when my classes end.”
”Sweet. I’ll come knocking then. See you!”
San finally presses the third floor button, making sure the mattress is fully inside the elevator. Yeosang lifts his hand in a small wave before heading for the stairs.
Well, now at least the crazy neighbor’s boyfriend has a name and a face. A way too lovely face.
”Wooyoung, get your ass here and help!”
Said man lifts his head up, rubbing his neck that feels sore from hunching over his textbooks for way too long. From the living room couch, he sees his boyfriend hauling in the mattress that belongs in their bed.
Maybe he did go a little overboard with his frustration fit this morning.
”You seem to do just fine by yourself”, Wooyoung can’t help but quip as he stands up.
”As if. I was lucky enough that the guy living downstairs was there to help. When my loving diet Hulk boyfriend should have been doing it”, San pouts, looking at him expectantly.
”Diet Hulk?” Wooyoung repeats as he grabs the free corner of the mattress, helping San lift it up once more. They manage to carry it to their bedroom quite easily.
”That’s what Yeosang called you when I told him what happened”, San explains, chuckling now that they are finally free from the unnecessary weight of the mattress and it lays back on its rightful place. Wooyoung will have to sort out the sheets, however.
”He lives on the first floor and apparently has been collecting the stuff you throw out.”
Wooyoung blinks in surprise.
”He has?” he asks.
”My stuff has been taken by some filthy little kleptomaniac?”
”He said we can go pick them up, so it doesn’t really count as stealing”, San states, shaking his head at his words.
”And he’s not filthy, Woo. He’s actually kinda cute.”
Wooyoung twists his lip into a pout.
”Fine”, he concedes. If he thinks about it, maybe it isn’t really stealing. After all, if someone finds something from the street... yeah. Why does San have to ruin a good narrative with facts?
”He’s not allowed to be cuter than me, though”, he lifts a warning finger, waving it at his boyfriend who laughs and leans in to peck his nose.
”You set a very high standard”, San admits before pressing kisses to his forehead and both of his cheeks.
”Now, put the sheets back.”
To his slight surprise, Wooyoung actually witnesses San returning home a couple days later, with some of the stuff he vaguely remembers tossing out of the window. He peers over his laptop to see San place everything on the coffee table. A page from one of his books he might have ripped out while screaming out his feelings. Two lip balms he honestly missed since they’re cherry-flavored, his favorite. Even the tv remote, and it’s surprisingly in a single piece. He’s not sure if it will work anymore, though, and it’s probably the one thing he feels bad about throwing.
Not everything is there, as Wooyoung recalls throwing one of his favorite sweatshirts too. And some snacks. But the shirt stings a little. It was very comfortable...
”I guess he didn’t get everything”, San shrugs nonchalantly when he asks, ignoring his pouting.
”But you should be grateful that we even got these back.”
”It was a nice shirt”, Wooyoung whines in return.
”And now it’s gone forever!”
San gives him an unimpressed look.
”And whose fault is that?”
That shuts him up pretty quickly, and they both go back to studying in comfortable silence. Honestly, Wooyoung can’t bring himself to mourn the loss of his items too much in San’s presence. His lovely San is already way too understanding than any normal person would be. He knows Wooyoung is stressed over his studies and the difficulties of finding internships and summer jobs... and that he has a bad habit of releasing that stress by opening the window, screaming like possessed and hurling out the nearest thing he can get his hands on.
The mattress and the remote were the only cases where San actually got a little mad at him. But even then he was quick to forgive and even went to collect the former before Wooyoung was even done apologizing. Wooyoung isn’t sure whether it’s because of true love or his particularly convincing puppy eyes look, but he will take it either way.
He’s so lucky to have San. And the weird hoarder/thief living in the first floor he hasn’t met yet, it seems. Wooyoung reaches to grab one of the lip balms and applies it to his lips, quietly praying that the guy wasn’t weird enough to use them.
The study session goes on without him so far getting frustrated enough to repeat his bad habits.
Sometimes Wooyoung hates living on the third floor. Granted, it is better than the fifth floor, but that hardly matters, when the elevator is stuck in the upper floors and he’s exhausted from classes and a meeting for a group project where two out of four people are not pulling their weight and it means he’s stuck doing most of the work with Changbin. But he’s also not in the mood for waiting around on the ground floor forever.
Stairs it is. Despite the fact that he’s ready to crash on the couch and sleep for two days straight. Wooyoung huffs as he drags himself to the staircase. Can you blame him? He’s been awake since seven in the morning and had a full day of classes with a lunch break barely squeezed in! The entire semester is torture.
He almost bumps into someone when he manages to rise up to the first floor. Wooyoung is halfway into grunting out an apology when he actually takes a look at the person. He looks like he could be a student too, around the same age as him, with black hair and a very pretty face. Pretty cute , his mind supplies. For some reason, he hears it in San’s voice.
It’s then that he lays the eyes on the guy’s outfit, as he listens to a surprisingly deep voice apologize to him with one ear. It’s gradually getting warmer, but he seems to be only heading out to take out the trash, since he’s not wearing a jacket. Just a sweatshirt.
A soft-looking, baby blue sweatshirt.
A very familiar, soft-looking, baby blue sweatshirt.
”You!” Wooyoung hears himself screeching out, his finger rising up to point at the other in accusation.
”You’re the little hoarder kleptomaniac!”
For a fleeting moment, he’s almost sure he can see the little thief pale a little. But very quickly, a defensive expression settles on his face.
”Um, rude.”
”Says the one wearing my shirt!” Wooyoung retorts with a huff. The Thief frowns at him, before something seems to click in his mind.
”You’re the diet Hulk”, he states, deadpan.
”... Wooyoung, was it?”
He’s honestly surprised that the guy even knows his name. Then again, he has met San, so it does make sense. Wooyoung is pretty sure San did mention his name too, but he has managed to forget it.
Doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Thief has the audacity to wear his sweatshirt (which looks really good on him, but Wooyoung refuses to admit that).
”Give me my shirt back”, he demands.
”I found it, so that means I can keep it, right?” the Thief hums, leaning against the wall.
”Since San didn’t take it with him when he came to pick up the rest of the stuff you try to get rid of. The recycle bins are in the backyard, by the way, not on the street.”
Wooyoung huffs again. This guy.
”San probably didn’t notice it, or you hid it from him”, he replies.
”Now give it back!”
”I’m not going to strip it off here”, the Thief scoffs at him.
”I’ll return it tomorrow, after washing it, alright?”
It’s a rather nice offer, actually. But Wooyoung is a little too tired and a little too agitated to accept it as is.
”I don’t trust you to wash it correctly”, he pouts.
”Just return it tomorrow.”
The Thief rolls his eyes (the nerve), but ends up nodding.
”Whatever. Come pick it up yourself. Now, I need to go.”
He pushed past Wooyoung, continuing his journey to the ground floor.
”And stop stealing my stuff!” Wooyoung yells after him.
”Stop throwing your shit out of the window!” he hears from below.
San is making dinner when he finally makes it back to their apartment. He seems to sense the mood quickly.
”What happened?”
Wooyoung takes a long, calming breath as he kicks off his shoes.
”I ran into the thief.”
”Oh, you saw Yeosang?” San asks, smiling as he goes back to making the pasta sauce.
Right, Yeosang. That’s the thief’s name. Yeosang. Yeosang, Yeosang, Yeosang, Wooyoung samples the name and its flavor as he makes his way to the kitchen, crashing on one of the chairs.
”I hate that little gremlin”, he mumbles.
”He was wearing my shirt!”
And had the audacity to look kind of cute in it, but that’s not something he’s going to say to San. Though he does remember that his boyfriend had described their new acquaintance with a similar adjective.
The work regarding the group project is seriously starting to get on his nerves. Wooyoung wishes he could bitch together with Changbin, but sadly, they’re not working together at all today, and instead he’s trying to sort through the material in the comfort of his own bedroom. The two other group members are still ghosting them in the group chat they set up, Wooyoung expects them to not show up to class either anymore. And if they do, he will make sure to inform the teacher who actually pulled the entire project together.
Even when the topic is halfway interesting, the way the whole project is unfolding right now pisses him off so much that it takes away all the potential enjoyment he might have found in it. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t gone through all of the pens, markers and pencils he has on the bed next to him and snapped them in half yet.
Wooyoung knows he’s a decent student, a brilliant one on his good days. He’s great at understanding the bigger picture and cause-and-effect, and dissecting the biases and presumptions of different sources. He’s everything someone who majors in history should be.
But he’s also stressed out of his mind and pissed at the other people in his class who aren’t pulling their weight. And no matter how good at he is what he does, the material he has to read through is still dense and difficult as fuck.
...
He swears he doesn’t even realize it is what he’s doing, but the noise leaves his mouth, the window opens and his pack of highlighter pens flies out before he can even think about it.
... oops. He has done it again.
Wooyoung lets out another roar of frustration as he runs two hands through his hair. He needs a vacation, but with what money?
He moves to see the damage, leaning out of the window slightly to peer down. The pens have scattered on the sidewalk in front of their complex. If he squints, he can see which color landed where.
And no less than half a minute later, someone appears, walking down the streets towards the door, but they stop when they notice the pens. Wooyoung narrows his eyes as he sees the person crouch down and pick them up.
Yeosang.
”Don’t take them, you little shit!”
His screech startles the little kleptomaniac, who is quick to look up at him. For a moment, they just stare at each other in silence.
Then, Wooyoung can see how the gears turn in Yeosang’s head and a decision reaches its final form.
”Make me!” Yeosang shouts back and - Wooyoung can’t believe it - sticks his tongue out at him like a taunting five-year-old.
And no, Wooyoung doesn’t make him do or not do anything. He simply sits there, huffing and seething in annoyance as his eyes are glued to Yeosang squatting on the street and picking up all of his precious (aka. the cheapest ones he could find) highlighter pens.
... at least he knows where to get them back.
Yeosang is half-expecting the ring of his doorbell the next evening, figuring that it is probably time to return the sweatshirt and the highlighter pens. The one and the half run-ins with the diet Hulk - Wooyoung - he’s had so far have been a little bizarre. He didn’t expect the man to be so loud and prone to screeching.
He also didn’t expect him to be an unholy combination of cute and handsome either, but that makes more sense when Yeosang reminds himself that he is San’s boyfriend. And San is outrageously cute.
Cute... and standing behind his door, with a book and a pizza box. Yeosang’s mouth drops open.
”Hey”, San flashes his dimpled smile that causes Yeosang’s brain to malfunction instantly.
”I came to pick up Woo’s shirt... and apologize for him potentially being dumb.”
Wow, he really knows his boyfriend, Yeosang notes to himself.
”You don’t need to apologize for him”, he points out.
”It’s not like you told him to scream at me in the stairway. And I guess I understand where he’s coming from, even if he’s the one who’s dumb enough to throw his shit out of the window in the first place.”
”Fair enough”, San concedes, but his smile stays and he gestures the pizza box towards him.
”Then, mind if we just hang out for a while, maybe have a less chaotic study session? Or am I intruding?”
Yeosang blinks as he’s sure he’s short circuiting at the moment.
San wants to hang out with him. Spend time with him, not just get his boyfriend’s stuff back. What is happening?
He takes a little too long to answer, but at least San isn’t already turning away. Yeosang hates that he took long enough for his smile to fade a little, however.
”Um, sure”, he nods, opening the door a little more to let the other in.
”I haven’t cleaned up though, I’m sorry...”
”It’s okay, I didn’t exactly announce my arrival beforehand, did I?” San waves it off as he steps in. Yeosang takes the pizza from him, eyeing the box curiously.
”... does this have pineapple?”
”We haven’t had that debate yet so I played it safe”, San grins as he takes his shoes off, arranging them neatly next to the clothing rack.
”I do have a pineapple can with me, though, if you want to add some.”
”No you don’t.”
Yeosang’s eyes widen when San proves that he does, in fact, have a can of pineapple with him, pulling it out of his pocket. It draws such a deranged laugh out of him that he almost drops the pizza.
”You didn’t !”
”I had to!” San insists, laughing along with him as they make their way to the kitchenette and the living room.