Work Text:
“Which one do you like better?”
Jeongin ponders over the two pairs of sneakers being held in front of him, one blue and one a muted green. “Maybe the blue?”
Seungmin hums and considers. “If I wear the blue ones though, I’ll have to change my jeans. The wash on them is too close to this color.”
“Yeah, but if you pick the green, you’ll have to change your shirt–”
“Oh my god,” A third voice interrupts their conversation, and it’s Hyunjin popping his head into the doorway. “Can you two just hurry up before we’re late for class!” Jeongin pointedly ignores him. He knows Hyunjin is just whining because if they don’t leave right now, he’ll catch the long line at the campus Starbucks and then it’ll take him an extra five minutes to get his ridiculous (in Jeongin’s opinion – nobody needs that many extra shots of espresso) coffee and then they’ll all have to sprint across campus so they don’t get marked late for their art history lecture for the third time this week.
But Hyunjin doesn’t understand how important the task at hand is, so Jeongin turns back to Seungmin and says, “if you wear the blue sneakers put on a black hoodie, and take a black bag, so it’ll still match everything else.” Seungmin takes this into consideration before nodding, giving Jeongin a smile of approval and pulling a sweatshirt over his head, finishing his outfit with a cap.
“Okay, yeah that looks better,” Seungmin turns from the mirror and grabs his bag, facing Jeongin and giving him a once-over. “Switch your hat, the color doesn’t match quite right.” He grabs a red cap and shoves it at Jeongin, who immediately puts it on. Huh. It does look better.
Once they’re out the door and walking hastily down the hallway stairs to head to the library – after listening to Hyunjin’s incessant grumbling about how he needs his caffeine – Jeongin realizes belatedly that he and Seungmin are…vaguely dressed the same. Not even just the same, but –
“Is that my hoodie?” Jeongin says to Seungmin when they all push through the front doors, sun shining brightly into their eyes.
Seungmin looks down at what he’s wearing, almost like he forgot. “Uh, maybe? I think we have the same one,”
“Yours is gray, remember? I got it for you for your birthday last year after you wouldn’t stop taking mine,” Jeongin says this lightly and without any bite behind it, but Seungmin snorts nonetheless.
“The one that you have on right now, you mean.”
Jeongin stops and looks down at his own body, taking in the fact that he does indeed have on Seungmin’s sweater and not his own. They’re basically identical, the logo stitched across the front in white the same on both articles of clothing, just different colors. It must have gotten mixed in with his laundry again or something.
“Oh. Well, yeah.” Jeongin responds a bit sheepishly.
“The gray one looks better on you anyways,” Seungmin says. “You can have it. We can switch.”
Jeongin tuts, “I knew you always wanted the black one,” and he gets cut off by Seungmin’s loud and bright laugh, “fine, whatever, just keep it.” Seungmin bumps their shoulders together affectionately and Jeongin adjusts his baseball cap, hoping his ears aren’t turning traitorously red at the gesture. They approach the library after a few minutes, following closely behind Hyunjin who is practically plowing through bodies in front of him to get to the Starbucks counter and ordering his drink.
Jeongin and Seungmin elect to wait until their morning class is over to grab their coffees so they don’t waste more time in their getting to class.
(“If you didn’t get such a bullshit drink we wouldn’t have to stand here and wait sixty years for it,” Jeongin tells Hyunjin who scoffs in offense.
“My daily intake of caffeine is really important, I’ll have you know. I need a proper amount.”
Seungmin looks at him blankly. “Nobody needs four shots in one coffee, Hyunjin.”)
They clamor into the lecture hall just in time, a minute and a half shy of being late, and take their seats in the back most rows in the middle as usual. Hyunjin takes his usual seat next to Felix, who of course came to class early, and they begin to whisper in low tones to each other while their professor takes down their names to count who’s in attendance. Seungmin and Jeongin sit in the same row a few seats over and queue up an episode of the show they’ve been watching together, hunching over Seungmin’s laptop to see it under the guise of looking like they’re sharing the screen for notes.
A typical Tuesday morning, really.
After the hour and a half lecture is over and done with, Jeongin, Seungmin, Hyunjin and Felix take on the daily task of deciding what to grab for lunch. Felix wants to try a new place off campus, which they all agree to, because none of them can say no to him – surprisingly it takes all of five minutes, which is a new record for them. Most days to Jeongin it seems like it takes five hours.
They catch a bigger table by the window and throw their bags down before stepping to the front of the place to order, eyes wide on the endless menu.
“I’ll pay today,” Jeongin says to Seungmin standing at his side, not taking his eyes off of all the options for noodles. “What do you want?”
“I’ll just get whatever you get,” Seungmin waves a hand dismissively. They step forward in the line, Hyunjin and Felix ahead of them. “I can pay for our drinks.”
“I said I was paying.”
“For the food. And I’m going to pay for the drinks.” Seungmin’s voice leaves no room for argument, but Jeongin thinks they'll see about that. He has his card prepped and ready in his hand when they step to the counter to order and keeps a close eye on Seungmin, rightfully so, because just as the cashier rattles off their total he pulls his own card out. Jeongin pushes his left hand in front of Seungmin’s and shoves his own card at the girl taking their order, who looks mildly amused at the fuss they’re creating in front of her.
Thankfully she gets the signal and takes Jeongin’s card quickly, much to Seungmin’s dismay. Jeongin smiles triumphantly and waves his card in Seungmin’s face smugly when it gets returned to him.
“Whatever, I’ll get it next time.” Seungmin mumbles and pouts, and Jeongin has to fight back the urge to coo at him and poke at his cheeks. They’re still in public after all, and he has an image to uphold. Even if it’s just for himself.
Seungmin sits with Hyunjin and Felix at their table while Jeongin stands to wait for the food, humming lowly along to the song drifting through the speakers and sticking his hands in the deep pocket of his hoodie. He feels a piece of paper slide against his fingers and he pulls it out to look at it, and almost snorts out loud when he sees it: it’s a note that he scribbled on a while back when he and Seungmin were in class taking a quiz and he needed help with one of the answers, so Seungmin had written it down and slid him the little slip of scrap paper. After the quiz had finished Jeongin doodled all over it, scrawled out ‘thank you seungminnie~’ and drew a few hearts to follow. Looking at it in broad daylight and out of context it seems pretty stupid, but secretly his heart warms at the prospect of Seungmin holding onto it just because Jeongin gave it to him.
His name gets called, snapping him out of his thoughts, and he steps over to the opposite side to grab the tray holding their bowls of noodles and side dishes. There are two cups of bubble tea on the side of the tray, and Jeongin frowns.
“Uh, sorry,” He speaks up to catch the cashier’s attention, “I didn’t – I don’t think I ordered these.”
The girl smiles and tilts her head at Jeongin sweetly. “I know. I heard your nice boyfriend say he wanted to pay for the drinks, but he didn’t get to,” She laughs playfully and Jeongin feels his cheeks turning a little pink at someone actually referring to Seungmin as his boyfriend. “So you guys can just enjoy those.”
And really, Jeongin would be an idiot not to accept a free drink, even under false pretenses. Two free drinks. So he thanks her shyly and scurries off quickly to their table, taking his seat next to Seungmin and across from Felix, who’s already digging into his bowl. Jeongin breaks his chopsticks in preparation to eat his own food, but Seungmin frowns from next to him.
“I agreed to let you pay for the food, not extra drinks too,”
“I didn’t pay for these,” Jeongin admits. “She – the girl gave these to us for free because she thought we were a cute couple.”
Jeongin barely gets the last syllable off of his tongue before he hears Hyunjin laugh loudly from across the table, Felix letting out a guffaw into his noodles. Jeongin furrows his eyebrows. He doesn’t see what’s so funny. He looks to Seungmin in hopes he’s wearing a similar confused expression, but his cheeks lift to his eyes as he smiles and laughs along with their friends. Seungmin catches his eye and makes a face that looks kind of stupid, and Jeongin would normally laugh at it but he feels like Seungmin is about to say something he won’t like.
“Aw,” He drawls, and Jeongin’s groan gets drowned out by Hyunjin’s and Felix’s loud laughter, “thanks for the drink, babe.” The words come out saccharine sweet, sticky around the edges and Jeongin feels them ache in his own teeth. Seungmin leans on Jeongin’s shoulder and he immediately shoves Seungmin off, feeling his frame shake with giggles.
He ignores Felix’s, “so cute,” from the other side of the table in favor of ripping the plastic off of his boba straw, distracting himself from his blushing cheeks and red ears by blowing the wrapper in Seungmin’s direction to hit him in the face with it, Seungmin batting it away with his hand before going back to his lunch.
Seungmin reaches for Jeongin’s hand underneath the table and laces their fingers together, resting their joined palms on his thigh before sipping his own drink placidly. Jeongin holds on, tight and secure, hoping that Hyunjin and Felix don’t notice. Judging by the looks on their faces when he looks up at their knowing glances, though, Jeongin is sure it didn’t slide by. But he finds that the warm feeling of Seungmin’s hand in his is nice, and he finds that doesn’t mind at all what the others might think.