Work Text:
The list of difficult things is long, but telling your boyfriend no ranks pretty high, especially when he pleads with your hands in his like this.
“It’s just for a few hours, Mingyu.” You smile gently, shaking off his hold to adjust your book bag. “I’ll sit at this table, you sit at one of the others, and we’ll get dinner together after, okay?”
“But we always study together.” There’s a hint of a whine in his words.
“Dinner at your favorite take-out place. I’ll pay.”
Even with the promise of food, he doesn’t look too happy about your decision, but he nods and walks to an empty spot by the windows. His seat faces yours across the study area, and as he settles himself, you’re tempted to call out his name, scrap the whole idea, and drag him into an unpopulated section of the library.
The late afternoon sun bouncing off his hair and features makes him unfairly beautiful, though he was good-looking to begin with. You drop your chin into your palm and sigh. Tall, smart, and a total sweetheart―how many countries did you save in a previous life to deserve this?
As if he can feel your gaze on him, he glances up and sends you a challenging look.
Well? His raised eyebrows seem to say, darting down to his open notebook and then back to you. Aren’t we going to study?
You shake your head, amused, and pull out your own work. At the top of the pile is your latest test score, the reason why you wanted to sit separately in the first place. You usually wouldn’t let this score bother you―it is from your worst class―but there are no excuses for how low this one is. Except that, well, Mingyu’s kisses are really, really distracting, and your last study session together quickly devolved into a make-out session that resulted in you pulling an all-nighter to finish your homework.
Lining up your favorite pens and hoping they’ll give you the focus you need, you flip open the textbook and start reading the chapter.
After ten minutes, you finish the introduction having learned one thing: this chapter is going to be boring. Your brain is melting at the over-complicated jargon. But you know the far fact of the being done said even though he want go far over looking deciding mess needing it brain injury…your phone’s predicted text makes more sense than this.
It’s okay, you tell yourself, tapping your highlighter against the table. Just thirty more pages to get through. Mingyu’s supposed to be doing the same reading; maybe he’s gotten further than you. You look up and nearly jump out of your seat. He’s already looking at you.
He’s still in the same position as earlier, leaned back in his chair with one arm on top of his notebook. Though the lighting is bright, it doesn’t wash away the dark intensity of his stare; the stare disappears in seconds, though, as he sticks out his tongue and crosses his eyes. Again, you just shake your head and double down on work.
But Mingyu’s distraction powers seem to work long distance because every time you finish a paragraph, your thoughts wander to your beautiful boy. It’s…a reward is your weak attempt at justifying it. You’re just chasing the butterflies in your stomach, the ones you get each time you meet Mingyu’s gaze. He’s not even pretending to study.
With the back and forth, it takes you forever to reach the end of the chapter, and if anyone quizzed you on the material right now, you’re confident in scoring a flat zero, but a promise’s a promise. You wave him over. It’s like you broke whatever spell was keeping him seated; you’ve never seen a man pack his things up so fast.
He skids to a stop at your side, taking your hand immediately. It’s comforting, the way your fingers slot together. “No more working separately. That didn’t work at all.”
“You didn’t even try.” You laugh.
“Yeah, because I already knew it wouldn’t work,” he says. He tugs you forward. “C’mon, let’s get dinner.”