Work Text:
Seungmin has been staring at the opened notebook on his thighs for at least twenty minutes. Hyunjin is humming to the tune of the song playing from the laptop sitting on his desk while lying on the floor, seemingly not really concentrated either. Eventually the song comes to an end by Hyunjin slamming the space button.
“Do you want to put on something?” his friend asks.
Seungmin lifted his eyes from the notebook to look at the black mop of Hyunjin’s hair from his bed.
“Sure.” He said and tossed the notebook to the side. It’s not like he’ll be able to do any studying today anyways, he’s been loopy all day. Life has been terribly unexciting lately.
He crouches down to the desk to put on “You were beautiful” again. Suddenly he feels Hyunjin lifting himself up to stare at the screen from behind his back.
“Again?” Hyunjin huffs. Seungmin turns around to stare at him, an eyebrow lifted.
“You never had a problem with Day6 before?”
“Don’t get me wrong I like Day6 as much as the next person, but have you listened anything new these days?”
“Like what? Kpop has been boring.” Seungmin says, but it comes out rather defensive. Hyunjin remains unimpressed, and continues.
“Maybe something that isn't kpop? Something slightly more underground?"
“What’s wrong with my kpop?”
“Nothing’s wrong with your kpop just-”
The taller boy crouches down next to Seungmin and brings his hands on the computer’s keyboard. He shuffles through some tracks and puts on something.
“I went to one of these guys’ show last weekend.”
Seungmin reads the words that flash on the screen. “Runner’s High -3RACHA”.
The beat is interesting, Seungmin decides. Yet this doesn’t stop him from complaining to Hyunjin “Ya, why did you even ask me to put on a song if you planned to flex your hipster ass songs?”.
Hyunjin slaps his arm playfully. “I’m doing you a favor here.”
Seungmin opens his mouth to tease him back, until another voice hits his ears. He stops for a moment to process what he’s listening to.
“That guy sounds cool.” He settles on saying. The guy rapping switches his flow and Seungmin is left staring at the red album cover.
“Ha, I knew you would like them brat.” Hyunjin puts some more songs on queue and flops back on the floor in front of his textbook
“That’s j.one, I think he's the youngest”. Seungmin tries to burn the unit’s name on his brain to search them later.
Tentatively he goes back where he was sitting and drags the goddamn notebook back from wherever he tossed it before.
Seungmin definitely doesn’t spend the weekend going through all of 3racha’s discography, but by Monday he has three new albums in his library.
Their music is intriguing to say the least. It’s certainly not as polished and clean as the music he usually gravitates to, but that just adds to its charm that hooked him in.
Well, that and also one more thing: the fact that j.one’s voice sounds eerily familiar.
The three members all have very distinct styles and voice colors but he has definitely taken a liking to the group’s maknae (a fun fact included in the description page on the 3racha soundcloud account that Seungmin of course didn’t follow). Seungmin very quickly learnt how to differentiate between the three member’s voices based on the solo work they’ve put out as well. He definitely prefers j.one’s voice though.
The excitement of having discovered a new band stays with him when he goes through the first few hours of the day. He meets for coffee with Hyunjin after his classes are over, as he does almost every Monday, and of course the other boy is overjoyed at the prospect of Seungmin swallowing his words and accepting his recommendation.
“You know what that means right?” Hyunjin stops messing with his latte’s foam art and looks directly at Seungmin. “You are obligated to go out with me the next time I go to a show.”
Seungmin for a second has to catch himself from letting his mind wonder, before rolling his eyes.
“Okay, fine. Maybe I do owe it to you.” He says, smiling. There is an itch in the back of his mind like he’s forgetting something.
“Do you have anything to do later in the day?” Hyunjin asks then.
“I-, probably, let me check.” Seungmin pulls out his planner and then he sees it in big bold letters, making his heart drop “Group project planning @ library 18:00”.
“Fuck I have a project meeting in like,” he checks his phone “sixteen minutes.”. He quickly reaches to his backpack to pay for his coffee, but he’s shut down by Hyunjin.
“Go, I’ll take care of it.” Hyunjin says casually. Seungmin looks at him, hoping that his friend will telepathically conceive his gratitude. “Thanks a lot.”. He means it.
Sprinting through the campus halls to reach the library is definitely the most demanding exercise Seungmin has done in a while. Despite his impressive attempt at running, since the library is in the exact opposite side of the campus, when he finally arrives at the entrance, the little white numbers on his phone already indicate that he’s ten minutes late. He roams into the building and starts looking for his project partner’s head.
Well, he’s pretty much fucked, since Jisung and he… didn’t really start in the right foot for this stupid project. The other boy will probably drill him for being late this time, and even worse he would be right to do so.
Seungmin runs as quietly as he physically can through the halls until he spots Jisung’s bleached mop of hair. He slows down, and moves towards the other boy’s direction.
Jisung snaps his head up and looks straight through Seungmin’s soul, with a hefty pair of headphones on, making pieces of his hair stick out in various directions. He’s practically drowning in an oversized black sweater, which is odd, this early into autumn. Seungmin tries to identify the music that’s playing on Jisung’s headphones, but the other is quick to press pause and take them off.
Seungmin and Jisung have a complicated relationship… if it can even be called a relationship. They're not friends, but they share multiple classes with each other, for it to seem like they run into each other all the time. From his psychology and sociology classes to the debate club, it seems like Jisung is constantly there to torment him. Yet, to be fair it's probably because they're both stupidly argumentative and opinionated -Jisung especially is so goddamn stubborn that Seungmin regularly gets the urge to choke him- so every other period they end up one another's throats, only to be disrupted by their frustrated professors.
Seungmin, being as friends describe him, "a seasoned nerd", just can't stand the thought of his teachers disliking him, leading him to develop a certain level of distaste for Jisung, who at certain times seems like he's plotting their conjoined academic sabotage. He can't help but find the way the other constantly questions, doubts, and challenges every single thing that goes out of his mouth to be infuriating. If he was maybe less assertive, then he would just ignore Jisung's bait, but he'd be damned I'd he let the other have the last word.
There is only one person who is apparently happy about their bickering, and that's no other than their Sociology ll professor, who paired them up for that stupid project. Professor Choi pulled them to the side after his lecture one day, and started gushing about how happy he is to have students "having respectful and thoughtful discourse" during his class, leaving both of them very confused afterwards.
And now there they are eyeing each other up and down in the library.
“You startled me.” Jisung says quietly, maybe a little annoyed.
“Sorry.” Seungmin mumbles back. At least Jisung didn’t chew him up for being late.
“Whatever. I got some books for you to read.”
Suddenly a stack of books is pushed in front of Seungmin.
“Is this not a group project? Why is it only my job to do the reading?” Seungmin protests.
“I’m busy.”
“Yeah no shit I’m busy too!”
“Relax, if you do the notes I’ll do the rest of the project, and then none of us will have to waste time meeting.”
Seungmin looks at the smaller boy like he’s crazy.
“Are you serious? How do I know you’ll make a decent project if I don’t do any of it? We’ll present it together!”
“Trust me.”
“No I won’t! Can’t we just split in parts and meet up for project checking weekly?”
“I just told you I’m busy!”
“We can do it bi-weekly or through video call or something.” Seungmin argues, not really wanting to completely lose control of the direction of the project.
Jisung sits up suddenly, and Seungmin dreads his next words.
“You just can’t live without seeing me huh.” He says, and Seungmin’s brain short circuits.
Another thing that absolutely infurates Seungmin about Jisung is his ability to say stuff like that out loud just to mess with him.
“What?” he croaks out, and Jisung, to his credit stays silent for a moment letting Seungmin, seize the opportunity to continue speaking. He drags his journal out and makes a few circles over four days.
“Look I know you’re busy, but we should plan around it and this properly as Mr Choi intended us to.” He says, half wondering if his face is as red as it feels. “We'll see each other exactly as much as we have to get a decent grade.” He adds.
“If we split the parts today, like how it was intended, and who reads what book, we can do the reading in two weeks, without meeting in person. Then we do the notes and exchange them. Which leaves us a whole month and a few days more for writing and reviewing that we can check in person bi-weekly, so you can have time to do whatever else you want to.”
Seungmin concludes satisfied with himself. He looks at Jisung preparing to defend his plan.
“Fine.” Surprisingly, Jisung agrees. “But you do the reading on social constructivism, because that shit bores me. Also give me more time for the reading.”
Seungmin blinks. That was relatively easy. Just arranging this meeting took them half an hour of arguing in class last week, so this is tremendous improvement.
“Give me your number.” Jisung shoves his phone in Seungmin’s face. “For the planning of course.” He says cheekily and Seungmin feels the need to smack him for this comment. Seungmin grabs the phone hovering near his face, and puts the number in.
“Now let’s do some planning for once.”
The reading period goes by relatively smoothly. Every time Seungmin bumps into Jisung in class (which is unfortunately very, very often), he doesn’t forget to ask him how is the reading going, earning a bunch of different responses. The first few days Jisung tells him off and calls him a nerd. After a while though he actually starts responding properly. It’s as good as it gets.
It occurs to Seungmin on their second study project meeting that he still isn't sure what Jisung actually studies.
"What are you majoring in?" he asks the other boy, while they're in the process of combining first drafts. Jisung, who's sitting across the old wooden library table, shots his head up. He has the edge of his pen between his canines, something that Seungmin has noticed, the other does a lot when he tries to focus. Not that Seungmin pays a lot of attention to Jisung, of course.
"Uh, social anthropology." he replies. "What about you?"
"I didn't even know our university offers anthropology." Seungmin murmurs more to himself than anything. "I'm in psych."
"Yeah, they mostly shove sociology and psychology classes down our throats."
"Is that why we literally share almost all our class?"
"Well." Jisung begins saying "No one forced you to pick the same electives as me Min-Min."
The audacity almost leaves Seungmin silent. "What? No I did not?"
"Admit you're just sooo obsessed with me."
"Do you want me to smack your head with Goffman?"
Jisung, fucking coos at Seungmin, earning him a glare from the younger. "You're so easy to tease, it's so funny." He says and the other almost feels his brain getting fried.
"Whatever." says Seungmin, and goes back to writing on his computer, with a little more force than normally. "Han. Why did erase the first paragraphs of my analysis?" he asks while staring at their conjoined google docs file.
"I'm rewriting it."
"Hey, you're the one bitching about being busy, why are you rewriting it?"
"You're being too abstract about constructivism."
"But it's an abstract concept though?"
"I, respectfully, disagree. Language just fails to describe it."
Seungmin rolls his eyes.
"Ugh, would it kill you to agree with me for once?" he nearly whines.
"Well, why are you so against a challenge?"
"I don't give a fuck about sociology Han, and you don't care at all about this project, you just want to annoy me."
"You're awfully egocentric Minnie." Jisung says cheekily, and Seungmin feels the urge to punch him for the pet name. "Besides who said I don't care about the project. I even offered to write it entirely."
"Let me see what you're writing then." Seungmin changes the subject and sits up, moving behind Jisung's chair. He tries to read the words on Jisung's screen. The other boy sits back on his chair.
"It's good right?" he says cockily.
"Don't flatter yourself." Seungmin replies. But in all honesty… It's an improvement from what he wrote. Besides he kept a lot of the original parts, whilst adding his own. "You write well."
"Thanks." Jisung says with a smile, and Seungmin can't help but think that maybe he isn't that bad.
The next time they share a class together Seungmin flops in the seat next to Jisung. The latter jumps out of skin at first, his pen drawing a straight line in the notebook he was scribbling words in. Seungmin feels a little bad about that, so when he speaks, his voice comes out a bit meek.
"Hey."
"Hi." Jisung greets back and closes his notebook.
"What were you writing? Don't tell me you're working on the project in another class?"
Jisung bites his lower lip. Seungmin has to hold back from telling him not do that. "No, it's just. Lyrics, I guess." he says uncharacteristically quietly, and Seungmin feels like he's overstepped. He's about to excuse himself and leave, but then Jisung finally meets his eyes. "The day I subject myself to more sociology that I have to is the day I die."
Seungmin lets out a breath he didn't realize he had been keeping. "Damn right." he agrees. "I didn't know you do music. That's cool.
"Thanks. The process behind doing music is significantly less cool though."
Jisung smiles, all teeth.
"Oh well, a cool result is all that matters right?" Seungmin tries to argue, and then he immediately regrets it when he sees the Jisung's eyes glinting with challenge.
"So, what you're saying is that you don't agree with the whole not it's about the journey not the destination thing?"
"Hey don't put words in my mouth!" Seungmin tries really hard not to whine. "I just wanted to be nice for once."
"Nice try bro." Jisung nudges his arm slightly, and Seungmin tries very hard not to enjoy it. "Now that I think about that would be a great topic for the debate club."
"Of course. Tuesdays are for the ethics of the uses of genetic biology, and Fridays for journeys and their destinations."
"Well it wouldn't kill them if we did something closer to philosophy for once."
"You're right. Fuck stem."
"Fuck stem." Jisung agrees. "Isn't psychology stem though?"
"…only a bit?"
“Psychologists, traitors to the humanities.”
“Shut up-“ Seungmin says and pushes Jisung’s arm slightly.
Maybe after that interaction an invisible wall shatters between them, as they actually start talking –texting even- more. Seungmin has to admit that Jisung can be, well, actually sort of likeable when he isn’t in class arguing with him, and that makes him feel funny at times. At first, Seungmin sends him a message to ask about Jisung’s progress, but then the shorter boy deflects and the conversation derails into them talking about their days, complaining about long lectures and boring professors, and even discussing their interests.
As Seungmin listens to the long voice notes Jisung sends him, because he doesn’t bother with like, actually typing, he can’t help but feel like he’s missing something. There’s a weird feeling, a dejavu about something he can’t pinpoint, in the bottom of his stomach, as he listens to Jisung’s soft voice ranting about the cold weather.
Well, maybe he’ll figure it out another time.
“You’ve never sent me your music.” Seungmin sends to Jisung one day. He has the same old playlist playing over and over again, it’s been a while since he listened to something new. 3RACHA excluded. He throws his phone on his bed and closes his eyes.
His phone rings softly, snapping them open again. He contemplates whether to open the message now or wait to a bit to not seem desperate. Well fuck it, he thinks and grabs his phone again.
“I don’t like any of our recordings.” Is Jisung’s response. Three white dots appear on the screen bouncing. “It might be a weird pet peeve, but I want people to listen live first. They’re better this way. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” Seungmin begins to write “I get it”
“Thanks.”
Jisung sends a weird gif with squirrels and hearts, and it might be slightly endearing.
“I want to go to a show next weekend.” Hyunjin says as he swallows down four doritos simultaneously. The crunch merges terribly with the sound of slaughtered zombies coming from Hyunjin’s laptop where a below average horror movie is playing.
Seungmin quietly hands him a paper towel to wipe away the crumbs that escaped to the taller boy’s jaw. When the aggravating chewing stops, Hyunjin continues. “And I want you to come with me.”
The days of the week have blurred together between classes, project meetings and homework, and before Seungmin notices another week has gone by. It's already Friday and the realization only hits him at Hyunjin's dorm for their weekly movie night
“You know I’m not into that sort of thing.” Seungmin starts saying before Hyunjin literally shuts his mouth with his dirty, dirty dorito hand.
“Shhh, hear me out for a second. What if it’s a 3RACHA show?”
Seungmin bites Hyunjin’s hand instead of responding- which he couldn’t even do if the other didn’t move his goddamn hand.
“Ow, asshole.”
“I should have bitten you harder.” Seungmin responds quickly. “I, I don’t know, maybe I could go with you after all.”
“Ha! I didn’t even need to remind you that you owe me.” Hyunjin squeals and gulfs down another fist full of doritos.
“Woah, dude it’s okay you don’t need to choke.” Seungmin begins to say but Hyunjin looks really elated so he stops. If going out with Hyunjin makes the other that enthusiastic then maybe Seungmin should start doing it a lot more.
The third –and last- project meeting with Jisung comes around fast. They pushed it back half a week because Jisung said he was too busy. Normally Seungmin would protest a disturbance in his schedule a lot more, but he agrees, completely out of character, without much fanfare. Maybe he’s getting soft. Just maybe.
They’ve made a lot of progress anyway. Whatever. Seungmin lazily makes small edits on his parts and sorts the references, while waiting for Jisung to appear, sat on the same library table as they were weeks ago. He sips on his iced coffee, pushing aside the thought that his throat will probably hurt later. Autumn is not creeping in anymore, it’s firmly there, and the weather has been getting chillier.
Then a loud thump shakes him out of his thoughts as he snaps his neck to see Jisung sitting in the chair next to him. The shorter boy is breathing deeply, cheeks flushed a pretty pink. He was probably in a hurry. He looks a bit different.
“Hey. Sorry, -oof, let me take a breath- sorry I’m late.”
“It’s okay take your time.” Seungmin says, and then he adds a question “Did you bleach your hair again?”
Jisung looks at him and blinks. “Aw, you noticed!” he says and pushes back his bangs. Seungmin rolls his eyes but smiles.
“What’s the occasion?”
“I wanted to ask-“ they say in unison. Seungmin gestures the other to go on.
“Sooo, you know I’ve been busy lately…” Jisung starts saying. “Me and my, eh, I guess my bandmates have been preparing for a small show.”
“Damn, that’s really cool! When is it?”
“It’s really nothing special and the bar we’ll do it in is as big as a mouse trap and we won’t even get paid, but yeah, it’s this Saturday. Do you, do you want to come.”
Seungmin can feel his smile fading.” He promised Hyunjin to go with him that night, goddamn.
“Jisung, I-, I’m very glad for the invitation, I really, really want to go, and please inform me when you do another show, it’s just, this Saturday I promised to my best friend-.”
Jisung looks sad for a moment but he puts a hand on Seungmin’s shoulder and reassures him. “It’s okay really, we, we’ll do another show soon anyways.”
“I’m really, really sorry.” Says Seungmin again, but the words feel a bit hollow even to him.
“It’s really okay.” Jisung repeats “And now we have a project to finish right?”
“Right.”
When they’re done and start walking back to their dorms, Seungmin gets Jisung a hot chocolate, for his throat, as a small apology, and the shorter boy accepts it happily
When the day of the show arrives, it finds Seungmin restless. Usually he takes his Saturday siesta time very seriously, but today, he finds himself very much awake and going through the motions of preparing himself to go out. As he digs through his clothes to find an acceptable outfit, he tries to remember the last time he went out to a show, or a bar, or anything like that. Maybe he should thank Hyunjin for dragging him out of his room. Maybe even give him a hug. Seungmin knows that he can be a rather difficult person to be around.
Even though he's excited for the night, he feels a pang of guilt when his mind travels to Jisung, but he shakes these thoughts away. Whatever, Jisung will be fine. He should stop thinking about him. Now.
Finally, he picks some slightly fancier clothes than he usually does, and eyes the bag of makeup on his desk as he dresses. What the hell, he thinks, he might as well go all out. He pushes his bangs back and grabs a brush.
The makeup process is going on smoothly, until Hyunjin literally barges in the room, scaring the shit out of him, almost ruining the blend of eyeshadow in Seungmin’s right eye. Hyunjin is of course delighted with the effort put, and then demands to put some on too. About an hour passes by until Seungmin is done with Hyunjin’s makeup, and by then, it’s getting apparent that they’ll probably be a little late. Usually Seungmin resents tardiness especially if he’s the one being late, but tonight he’s not going to let himself get mad.
Nothing will ruin his mood, he thinks, as the pair starts running to the bus station. It looks like it’s going to be a delightful night.
Seungmin feels a lot of things when they arrive. For one, the bar is actually underground so before the pair even descend, he feels the familiar bass rattling his insides and bouncing inside his brain. He then actually hears the music playing and realizes that the show has already started, recognizing the song as Runner’s High, the first 3racha song Hyunjin put on for him, such a perfect coincidence.
Then they reach the floor and Seungmin sees Jisung holding a microphone.
Seungmin finally, finally, makes the goddamn connection and his eyes widen.
How, just how did he not realize earlier-, god he’s in idiot, he’s such a dumbass, how even-
He squeezes Hyunjin’s arm and the taller turns to look at him.
“Is everything alright?” sweet, sweet Hyunjin asks worryingly.
“Hyunjin, that’s fucking Jisung.”
“What? Like, your classmate? With the project?”
“Yes!” Seungmin tries to scream quietly. And then he sees Jisung staring at him.
The bar isn’t all that big and the trio doesn’t have a stage to stand on, just a small elevated space, so he sees Jisung smiling crystal clear. He panics and waves back kind of awkwardly, hoping that he smiles even a fraction as brightly as the other. Jisung then lifts the microphone at his lips and starts rapping his verse.
In the end Jisung was right. Their songs definitely sound better live.
And they all look stunning too, under the colorful lights. Especially him.
The moment the final word comes out Jisung’s mouth Seungmin starts howling along with the rest of the sizeable audience. Jisung meets his eyes and then to his absolute astonishment, says “Hiiii Minnie” into the microphone.
Seungmin must be grinning like an idiot when Hyunjin grabs him by the arm to order some drinks, as another song starts playing. The taller jabs his fingers in Seungmin’s waist.
“What was that? What else have you been hiding from me?”
“I haven’t been hiding anything from you!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew j.one personally?”
“I didn’t know!”
“Do you even realize Instagram is a thing? They post their faces on it all the time!”
“I never followed them there!”
Hyunjin has to be holding himself back from laughing.
“You’re really clever, yet so dumb sometimes.”
Seungmin can’t really argue with that. They order two drinks and then rush back in front of the “stage”.
Jisung looks very different when he performs. In a good way, of course. He’s even dressed differently, ditching the oversized sweaters for once, preferring a sleeveless top –Seungmin didn’t know he worked out. His members, his friends, look so fun playing around with him while performing. They have amazing chemistry and Seungmin is... enchanted. More people come song after song and soon they’re all jumping round and screaming. The trio is really too good at hyping up the crowd that they might as well be performing in front of millions.
It must really be the most fun he’s had in a while and Hyunjin looks really overjoyed too. The drink tastes sweet and makes him pleasantly dizzy. It really doesn’t take more than that for him to feel ecstatic.
3racha goes through song after song and at some point BG97, who Seungmin actually recognizes too as Chan, announces that they have one last song to play.
“It’s a new one!” SpearB (Changbin? Seungmin thinks his actual name is Changbin), nearly shouts into his microphone and the crowd cheers back.
“We go” is the perfect climax for the night and Jisung looks so, so excited when performing his parts. In the end Seungmin cheers more loudly than he ever has before as he watches the three members hug. He watches Jisung step down the stage and drink some water, and like he’s actually possessed slips through the crowd until they’re face to face.
Jisung looks a little sweaty, a little tired but also really, really happy and Seungmin’s heart swells. Jisung brightens up when he sees him.
“I thought you couldn’t make it.” He says, voice the slightest bit hoarse.
“I was always supposed to come.”
“What?”
“I will explain later.” Seungmin says and then he feels Jisung’s tentative fingers brushing some of his hair out of his face. At that moment he feels something snap, and before he realizes he leans forward and presses his lips against Jisung’s.
The kiss doesn’t really last too long considering the less than ideal circumstances around it (they’re in a crowd! Jesus), but when it ends Jisung envelopes around Seungmin, and that feels really good too. Before he leans away Jisung says quietly, words muffled “Go out on a date with me asshole.”
“Okay.” Seungmin agrees and holds him tightly.
EXTRA
Seungmin learns from Jisung afterwards, when they’re on the date at some new noodle place a few days later, that Chan and Changbin haven’t stopped teasing him since Saturday.
“They kept telling me we looked like rookie actors in a below average drama.” Jisung says exasperated.
“Ouch? I hope you like bad dramas at least.”
“I think I do a lot actually.” He says slurping on the noodles suggestively and Seungmin starts laughing.
Dork. When Soeungmin lifts his stare to see Jisung choking on his noodles he can't help but think that the journey was fun and so is the destination.