Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jeong Jaehyun was a name well known across campus, everyone having heard of the guy whose body and face came straight from a teen magazine. Not only was he perfect on the outside, he was also perfect on the inside. Perfect grades and attendance, kind-hearted, sweet and caring- you get the gist of it. If you look through the dictionary, every positive word describes him.

Needless to say, he had piles upon piles of people looking for a chance with him, all genders desperate for even just one date. There hadn’t been a week in his college life where he didn’t get a confession or a message asking him out. Even the people who got rejected settled with getting to be friends with him.

So when the new transfer student that had recently moved into his till then empty dorm, he was shocked to see the boy completely ignore his existence. Aside from a slight bow of acknowledgement, the boy had never spoken to him; hell, he didn’t even know his name for god’s sake! 

When he told his friends about this ‘mysterious’ roommate he had, they all laughed at him.

“Dude, you mean to tell me this roommate completely ignored The Jeong Jaehyun? As in the Jaehyun that people chase after? No way.” Johnny teased, a cheeky expression on his face and an overly sweet voice as he said his name.

“Stop making fun of me okay? It’s just weird to get completely shrugged off by the person you’re gonna be living with for the rest of the semester!” He whined, stretching out his right arm and laying his head on it.

“I mean, I don’t think the kid hates him or something. He could just be shy!” Taeyong said, grimacing at his soggy fries. “Besides, why do you care so much? Is this new roommate better looking than you? Does your position as campus’ heartthrob feel threatened?” 

Everyone at the table laughed at that, making Jaehyun bury his head in his arm, hoping to just vanish.

“No! I mean I’m not calling him ugly or anything, I barely even see his face with that mask and cap he’s always wearing. I’m just saying, why wouldn’t he talk to me? Do you guys think he’s intimidated? Did I come off too strong?” He looked at Mark as he finished, knowing the kid would be honest with him.

“Well, um, I mean-” He scratched his neck in an awkward manner. “You do look kind of intimidating, you’re, like, what? 6 feet? Not to mention you’re really broad and you tower over people.” Mark made little gestures with his hands, trying to think of the correct words to use.

“I don’t tower over people-” Jaehyun argued. 

“Yes you do.”  

“Shut it you giant, you’re even taller than me, you don’t get a say in this” At this. Johnny put his hands up defensively and slightly shook his head.

“I guess you got me there.” He grinned.

“Back to the topic, you also do this thing where you kind of project your voice, I don’t know, maybe you should speak softer.” Mark said and looked at Taeyong. “What do you think? Were you also intimidated by Jaehyun at first?”

“Also?? You were SCARED of me?” He said, speaking a little louder than intended and getting a glare thrown his way by a server passing by.

“Of course I was! I had just gotten on campus and I heard like ten different girls scream at you to get your attention. You were, like, a statue that moved. Anyway, Taeyong?”

“Huh? Oh! Oh yeah definitely. Imagine going to your first class in college and seeing a hoard of people surrounding the kid sitting next to you.” Jaehyun opened his mouth to protest, closing it right after as he saw the glare Taeyong was throwing his way.

“So you guys think he’s just scared of me?”

“I mean yeah, that’s probably why he doesn’t interact with you.” 

So here he was now, trying to think of ways he could appear friendlier. He opened up his laptop as he started typing into the Google search bar

‘How to be friendly’

He pressed on the first website he saw, a site named wikihow, and read the first point.

1.Smile More.

Practise smiling, even when you’re by yourself.

That would probably be a good idea. He opened his phone’s camera and tried smiling in the friendliest way he could. He snapped a few pictures, testing different smiles. Pleased with the amount he took, he carefully looked over them.

“This looks good, but my eyes look too insincere.” Delete.

“There’s too much teeth showing, I look creepy” Delete.

“I don’t like this one, it looks a little too happy to be genuine.” Delete.

“This one looks good but there’s no dimple showing” Delete.

“This one looks good enough I guess. I’ll use this as a reference photo and practise smiling later”

He locked his phone and looked at the screen again.

2.Have open body language.

Have good posture instead of slouching.

Lean forward toward other people.

He stood up from his bed and went to look in his closet’s mirror. He slightly stretched and tried to straighten his posture as best as he could. ‘Is this really going to help? I look weird’ , he frowned at the mirror and tried relaxing his muscles. He turned to different angles and decided that was as best as it was going to get.

He was an interactive person who loved human contact, so leaning towards his roommate wasn’t going to be too hard.

He went back onto his bed and scrolled to the next point.

3.Make eye contact.

Well, it’s not like he hadn’t tried to look into his roommates eyes. As hard as he tried, the other boy never looked towards him. ‘I guess I’ll try harder. If we make eye contact, I’m sure he’ll see I’m a nice guy’.  

4.Ask people about themselves.

This one he could do. He was a master at all talk, small or big. He took out his phone again and opened his notes app.

Questions to ask roomie:

1. Ask him what he’s majoring in.
2. Ask him if he has any pets.
3. Ask him what university he transferred from.

Thinking that if he asked even just these three questions, conversation would come easily, he closed his phone again.

5. Compliment others.

Jaehyun could easily do that! He remembered that the other boy had piercings, he could compliment them and maybe even ask him when he got them! He slightly smiled, these were all doable things.

6. Use people’s names when you talk to them.

He instantly takes his last statement back at this. How was he going to address the boy by his name if he didn’t know it? He groaned.

‘I can ask around, surely he has friends that would tell me his name!’ And as much as he wanted to believe that that would work, he knew that the student population was huge and the chances of randomly stumbling into the boy’s friends were near zero.

But he wasn’t going to let that ruin his mood or spirit, it was just a small detail.

7. Give more invitations.

He stopped to think, was there a party happening this week? He once more opened his phone and opened up their group chat

Jaehyun: Is there a party this week?

Johnny:  Sure is

Johnny:  u thinking of coming mr. i’ll never go to a party again?

Jaehyun: Yeah I’m thinking of inviting my roommate 

Taeyong: What????

Johnny: Dude, tell me you’re joking

Jaehyun: I’m not? Why would I joke about that lol

Johnny: …

Jaehyun: So when and where is it?

Johnny: This friday at Ten’s

Jaehyun: Thanks man I’ll tell you if he accepts

And at that, he was sure he was ready to face his roommate again. The website helped a lot, even though the pictures terrified him.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was show time. Jaehyun’s roommate had managed to avoid him for two days straight, but luck was on Jaehyun’s luck today. Here was his roommate in all his glory, munching on corn flakes at their dining table.

“Good morning!” Jaehyun exclaimed, his practised smile on his face.

The roommate nodded at him, not even looking up from his bowl.

“So, what do you major in? I major in Literature” His roommate (finally!!) looked up at him with a confused look on his face.

It was silent for a moment and Jaehyun was panicking. What would he do if he didn’t answer? This was so embarrassing, he’d have to change roommates and universities and-

“Computer science and Engineering” The boy mumbled, and had Jaehyun not leaned forward, he would have missed it. Jaehyun tried keeping eye contact, but the boy had gone back to staring at his bowl, his cereal getting soggy.

“Oh. So do you have any pets? I used to have a little hamster back home but I came here and I haven’t seen it since.” Jaehyun was hopeful, he was leaning more and more toward his roommate and he didn’t make a move to leave.

“I have a dog back in Japan.” Japan? That explains the japanese books Jaehyun saw when the boy was moving in.

“What’s its name? I love dogs, I had a golden retriever when I was younger!.” This was going so well!

The boy mumbled something in response, but Jaehyun couldn’t hear him clearly.

“Huh? Could you say that again, I didn’t catch it.” The boy groaned and Jaehyun flinched.

“Her name is Rapunzel.” Silence filled the room once again. Jaehyun tried his hardest to push down the urge to laugh at the name, but he still let a slight laugh escape his mouth. That seemed to be the wrong thing to do, as his roommate stood up and dunked his unfinished cereal in the sink. Hoping to at least cross off another point from his list, Jaehyun quickly spoke.

“I really like your earrings!” The boy nodded at that and left for his room.

Making sure that there was no way he could hear him, Jaehyun sighed and pouted as he slouched against the counter.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

Chapter Text

Jaehyun picked himself up from the counter and went into his room. He threw himself onto his bed, face up, and harshly rubbed his hands on his face. God, he was so embarrassed, his face felt like a furnace. He positioned himself so he was on his side. He’d been so sure this was going to work, but now it was going to be even harder, given how awkward the encounter felt. He sighed, deciding to just do something productive like the assignments he’s been ignoring.

Opening up his laptop, he pushed his password in and went into his web browser. His left eye twitched when he saw that the wikihow article he’d used was left open. He quickly closed the tab, eyes darting to his door as he heard his roommate’s door creak, followed heavy footsteps and the sound of their front door closing. ‘He must be going to a lecture’, Jaehyun thought. He hummed and checked his email before it hit him. He also had a lecture. His eyes widened as he looked at the time. Shit. It was nearing a quarter to eleven, he only had fifteen minutes to get ready and get there. His class was fifteen minutes away, ten if he picked up the pace and even less if he ran. He had to hurry. He shut his laptop closed and launched off his bed, hurriedly picking up the clothes he had worn yesterday and sniffing them. They had a faint smell, nothing anyone but himself would notice. ‘Good enough’. He put them on and rushed to the bathroom to brush his teeth and put on some deodorant.

He packed his laptop in his bag and checked his phone again. 10:49. He had gotten ready in record time! He jogged to the front door and went out, almost forgetting to lock it behind him. He quickly made his way through the corridor, deciding to take the stairs as the elevator was on the ground floor. Despite almost tripping, he managed to get out of the building in one piece. Making his way to the side of campus his lecture was on, he eventually made it to the Literature building and his lecture room with two whole minutes to spare. He pulled out his laptop and his pathetic excuse of stationery as he mentally prepared for a three hour lecture.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The lecture had been as boring as he’d expected; the professor had a big mouth and kept getting side-tracked - Jaehyun now knew that his daughter’s basketball game had gone splendidly and she had scored the final point that led her team to victory -. Jaehyun was sure that everyone was at the little restaurant they frequented right now, yet he dreaded meeting them. He had to talk about his failed attempt earlier and admit that maybe he shouldn't have trusted a website to solve his problem. He was definitely going to get an earful from Taeyong. He shuddered at the mental image of Taeyong’s disappointed glare. If there was something he hated more than someone not liking him, it was Taeyong’s disapproval. He realized that he had been standing in front of the lecture hall door like an absolute idiot, face unknowingly changing expressions so often it was sure to have given someone whiplash.
Jaehyun walked as slow as he possibly could without it looking weird. He could do with sparing himself a few minutes of peace before he had to talk. While walking down the hallway, he saw a boy he recognised as Mark’s roommate. He had talked to the boy once when he went to hang out at his dorm; he was a nice guy. He tried recalling what his name was, but he just couldn’t remember it. It definitely started with an A though, that he was sure of. Jaehyun greeted some people he’d seen around campus, even going as far as stopping to talk to them, something he normally wouldn’t do; he had always been great at dragging things out.

Eventually, he was outside of the restaurant. He stood outside of the glass door and looked at their usual table - just as he expected, they were all already there. No one noticed him standing outside yet and Jaehyun thought about turning back around and running to his dorm to cry in self pity. Before he could even turn around though, Johnny spotted him and flailed his arms around to greet him. Jaehyun slightly glared at him before shakingly pushing the door open, the bell louder than he remembered. They all turned to look towards him at the sound. Everyone was aware of his arrival by now, he had to do this. He could admit that he had made himself look like an ass. He greeted them and went to the counter to order his food. He felt their stares on his back, obviously waiting for him to come sit with them. Jaehyun hoped he didn’t look as on edge as he felt. He could always lie and say he held an actual conversation with his roommate, but he doubted they’d believe him. He wasn’t a good liar and they’d see right through him. The cashier, a tall brunette he’d seen around campus a couple of times, called his name and handed him his food. He paid him and finally went to sit.

“I’m guessing you failed in talking to him, seeing as you took way too long to get here.” Taeyong said as soon as he sat down in front of him. Curse him and his reading skills.

“I did talk to him, for your information.” Taeyong raised an eyebrow at him, silently telling him he didn’t believe him.

“Okay. What’s his name?” Silence filled the table. Shit. He had forgotten the most basic conversation starter.

“Well um, you see…” He cast his eyes around the place, avoiding all eye contact. “I might have… forgotten to ask for his name?” More silence. He made the mistake of glancing at Taeyong. Oh no, the mental image from earlier had become a reality.

“You forgot to ask for his name.” Taeyong slowly repeated. “You ‘talked’ to him and didn’t ask him what he’s called.” Jaehyun nodded. “You held a conversation with a human you do not know and did not think about learning who he was.” He nodded again.

He looked at Johnny and Mark for help, only to see them horribly hide their laughter.