Chapter Text
The acoustics department of the Physics Faculty at the National University of Seoul was completely abandoned. No reseach or experiment had been funded, or paper published in over ten years. But it's lab was the most frequently used one in the whole university, it's just that, it was used with upmost secrecy. A secret, you could say, that nobody noticed or even cared about. The school had never shined because of the achievements of said department, and there wasn't a single professor on campus that worked on the field.
No authority on school cared about the lab, but it was Jisung's reason to wake up every day. It all started with the iniciative of two freshmen, a couple years ago, to revamp the forgotten lab "To further develop their knowledge and reactivate the research." That by itself didn't hold much weight, however the influence of the Seo family and the offer of a generous donation, did. So basically, the lab that nobody cared for, became an almost autonomous entity from the school, under certain criteria.
This secret felt like a gift from heaven, after Jisung was rejected by his dream university's Music Production major and had to settle for the much less appealing second choice of a Physics major. He stumbled into the Acoustics Department one night, three months into his first semester, after he woke up in the middle of the night in the empty auditorium where there had been a Talk needed for his Thermodynamics class.
He had fallen asleep and nobody had bothered waking him up, the sad reality of not being friends with anyone in that class... Or any other for that matter. But the thing was, that he didn't wake up on his own volition. A loud sound found it's way into his dreams and it sounded like a big, Fat, DISGUSTING baseline one would use for the likes of a EDM song or something.
Following the sound up until the third floor, on the very last lab down the hall, he found himself in front of the two most dudebros to ever dudebro jumping up and giggling to the rythm of a track with the hardest hitting baseline Jisung had ever heard. It even made the floor vibrate.
The guys were around his age and height but with way more muscle mass. Kinda handsome too. He didn't really know what to do about the two guys throwing what seemed to be a private rave of two, on the Physics building in the middle of the night inside a lab that had definitely seen better days, and wasn't being used for anything the school taught. He didn't want to intrude, but he was also dying to see everything they had done with the space.
It was an average looking room with old cardboard boxes thrown in at random, as if it was used as storage unit more often than not. There were also a lot of cables, microphones, instruments and synthesizers laying around, along a big monitor, some expensive looking speakers and a very confusing, almost DIY, control panel. In the middle of it, there was a window that showed another room, the actual lab. Every inch of it was covered with foam, and the door leading to it was thicker than most.
Jisung was too invested observing how weird the place was, he forgot the guys were there. That was, until one of them turned around and let out a scream of horror. After they confirmed it was just a pale, thin and sleep deprived underclassman and not a ghost, watching them from the darkness of the hallway, he was invited to join them. Their names were Chan and Changbin and both of them were also Physics majors, but a couple semesters ahead of him.
They invited him to sit with them, and spent the night showing him all their crazy projects and explaining all of the modifications they had done to the lab to make it into the weirdest recording studio ever. It was nice. They shared similar music taste, a similar attitude towards Physics and they found Jisung amusing for some reason. Nice hyungs over all. Jisung showed them some song he had worked on his own back home, using just GarageBand on his computer.
That night he was adopted into the Super Secret Council of the Acoustics Lab, since the founding members saw he was as passionate about music as them. Most of the time they worked in the middle of the night, (a part of the conditions was that the couldn't disturb any class or personal study time) after the building was finally empty, recording music, rapping, making beats, nothing too out of the ordinary. But sometimes they flexed their actual acoustics and engineering knowledge to craft the weirdest sounding things, like the the bass that guided Jisung to the lab on the first place or a fuzz pedal so powerful it actually hurt their ears somehow. Experimenting was a must, as Chan usually said, just to honour the name of the department, despite not being too focused on Acoustics as a science anyway.
---
His alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. as usual, while most of his roommates wake up at 7. He has never been a morning person, but this way he gets to have the bathroom all for himself and skips awkward small talk. It's not that he dislikes them, but they've never clicked. He's takes his backpack and he's out by 7:30. Before class, he heads to the campus coffee shop for a frankly awful and overpriced latte.
"Order for Jaesung" the barista calls.
Jisung silently walks to the counter to receive his mislabeled order. They wrote it wrong the first time and he was too shy to correct them so now he has been leading a life as a Jaesung for almost 4 months now.
First he has Introduction to Electromagnetism. He sits on the back of the classroom and tries to take the most decent notes his scraggly handwriting allows him. Then he goes to Calculus and finally Analytical Geometry. After eating by himself at the school's cafeteria he goes into the library.
It is true that he started to spend four till eight every day to do all his homework there before going to the Acoustics Department. That way he could guarantee he would actually do his homework, before spending the night making music with the boys. He owed it to his mom and dad to do well in Uni, it was the law. But he would be a liar if he didn't admit that he wouldn't have kept such a strict schedule or such a tight hold on the third table to the right of the checkout desk if he never had discovered that the most beautiful being known to humanity worked Mondays to Fridays on that same time slot.
The personification of Beauty was a guy with fluffy brown hair, pouty lips, cat-like eyes with angry looking eyebrows and a tall nose. It was like his face was made by the most talented artist, sculpted out of Jisung's hopes and dreams. It didn't hurt the guy knew how to dress, favouring soft-looking cardigans on pastel and neutral tones, and loose fitting shirts that showed his collarbones in conjunction with tight pants that worked only to show that he had a wonderful butt and fantastic legs.
The little intel Jisung had about him was that he was a strict librarian, constantly shushing people and kicking out everyone who thought could sneak a drink inside. In fact, the first time Jisung noticed him was after a guy somehow managed jam the photocopier after printing more than the pages allowed. The guy kept apologizing: it looked more like a mistake made due to lack of sleep than malice, but the librarian took him by the ear and threw him out of the library after informing him of a 6 month ban from the photocopier. Then he threw his stuff out too. All while keeping quiet enough for the library.
Despite that impressive display of power, he usually just read at the desk when he had nothing to do, but it wasn't rare seeing him reshelving books left and right with upmost care. He would always answer kindly to all the questions he was asked and after the incident, he would help everyone with the ancient photocopier whenever it was needed. Another thing Jisung noticed was that while he was well respected by everyone else in the staff and the usual library goers, he also had a bit of a reputation.
He was famous for his objectively good looks, but he wasn't someone that had too many admirers. Or better said, he did have plenty of admirers, but few of them were willing to approach him. Wether it was his naturally angry expression, his uninterested demeanor or crazy rumours floating around about him, it put people off. The guy himself, didn't seem too interested on anybody, or anything that wasn't his job. Often dismissing any flirting that came his way, with a smile that could only be defined as sarcastic. Overall, he was kind of this completely unforgiving figure, that only the brave (or the fools) tried to encounter.
All of that, didn't stop Jisung from daydreaming about him, though.
It's not like he would ever try something, anyway. Jisung has never dated. He was mostly known as the goofy kid that singed and danced all the time, the one that had to be the loudest all of the time. The one teachers couldn't get too angry with, because he always finished his school work, and was respectful. The one girls don't really want to date because he's a bit too obnoxious. It's not like it really mattered because he always liked boys better.
Back in his small town, he knew he would never be able to date another guy. But now he was in Seoul, the capital. A huge city with great night life, and an opportunity waiting on every corner. While being gay was still a bit of a taboo for certain people, the main difference was that he was technically an independent adult and no one could stop him hooking up with all the guys he wanted. Except for, y'know, himself.
He thought being away from everything he once knew would be great and freeing. He thought he would be able to be out of the closet, have friends to hang out with regularly, get a boyfriend and have late night meaningful conversations. For some reason, he became silent. Leaving out Changbin, Chan and their Frankenstein of a club, he had no one he could rely on. He barely existed in the joint consciousness of the university's campus: no one in his classes remembered his name, no teacher would remember him as the kid that got all answers right at the same time he made funny remarks because he was absolutely sure he had never uttered a single word within a classroom since he got here.
So, yeah. Dating was getting too ahead of himself. Let alone having korean Adonis as a boyfriend.
The librarian has been stacking books on the Physics section for a while when he catches on Jisung staring at him, completely lost in thought. Jisung tries to regain his composure, wiping the literal drool coming out of his open mouth and pretends he wasn't watching the guy, but reading the boring-ass poster about library etiquette behind him.
"Easy there, big boy." The librarian mocks him.
The guy smirks and shakes his head as he walks away. Jisung can feel his ears burning out of embarrassment. What a great first impression.
---
On weekends, Jisung works on an anime store a couple blocks away from school. He likes it. His boss is a woman on her thirties that knows so much on the topic she might as well be a walking encyclopedia. She is pretty chill with his hours and she doesn't mind if he flips through the new arrivals. She's pretty much Jisung's ideal boss and probably the only person in Seoul he feels comfortable with. Kinda like a mentor, or something.
The shop is dark and cozy, filled with posters, anime figurines and shelves of manga, light novels and anime box sets. Work there consists on shelving and working on the inventory, since most of the clientèle comes for pick up orders only. However, it's not rare to have people that just comes around to browse or confused relatives searching for presents.
It's unusual but YuBin, his boss, tells him he's free to go early due to a busted pipe on the building. That's why he finds himself walking aimlessly a Saturday afternoon, not ready to go back to his dorm but with no idea what to do with his time. Is he in good-enough terms with Chan and Changbin to ask them to hang out outside the lab?
It's then he sees none other than korean Adonis approaching him. Well, obviously not him, but his way. After the other day, he wasn't ready to face him, not after he caught him drooling for him for who knows how long. So he does what any sane person would do and walks through the first open door he sees before he gets spotted.
"Hi, welcome to Sweet Plum diner, What can I get you?" An outstandingly deep voice greets him.
"Ummm..." Jisung takes a moment to take in the place.
He takes a whiff and all he can perceive is freshly baked cookies and perfectly roasted coffee. The place is kind of unusual. The styling is very modern, one part of it, where the bar is, has naked concrete walls decorated with black and white abstract photography, the other part, where most of the tables are is surrounded by glass walls. On the surface, it is just a standard coffee shop, with a modern and minimalist styling that is very trendy these days. The drinks and the pastries are simply beautiful, very Instagram ready. But, what is unusual is that most of the people inside are elderly women.
There's blonde kid wearing a striped apron and a beanie that is probably a little too big for his small head behind the register.
He's smiling at Jisung, waiting for his brain to catch up.
"Yeah, I'll have... A latte and a cheesecake. Please." He says after reading the menu written in chalk with beautiful calligraphy.
"Sure, have a seat, I'll bring it to you."
It's then when Jisung notices him. On one of the stools by the bar, he is chatting with the barista as if they're friends. He is probably the youngest person in the whole shop, younger than Jisung and the barista. His smile is big, full of braces and dimples, it looks like he's having the time of his life.
"And then, she said my homeroom teacher was impressed with the essay. If only they knew Seungmin helped me write the whole thing..."
"I didn't help you write it, I wrote it." A disembodied voice interrupts from another room that soon becomes another guy, that walks in tightening his apron. "You were just there."
"Don't flatter yourself. What you wrote was only impressive on a high school level." The youngest retorts.
Jisung sits down on the only table near the bar, it is too close to the baristas and their friend for his liking, but he figured he'd be less visible there than on the other part of the cafe. He really wished he wasn't too visible from the outside, because korean Adonis had stopped right in front of the glass doors and turned his head to see who had called him. Jisung takes his laptop out to help himself hide better. He doesn't have homework to do, but he opens the file of the latest beat he's been working on.
"Here you go, mate." The blonde kid places carefully his order with a kind smile.
Jisung struggles to respond with just a shy "thanks." And a vague smile, not daring to meet his eyes.
A guy walked up to Jisung's crush and wrapped his arm around him in a very possessive way. As they walk away, Jisung tries to push away the feelings of jealousy. He was never his, he rationalizes, so it's stupid to feel this way. And he never will because you've become an unlikable hermit. His brain supplies, and well, that much is true. It's awful, but at least now he's upset about the right thing. That's better, right?
He takes a spoonful of cheesecake and even those feelings disipate. This is the best cheesecake he has ever had.