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The headphones sat there blankly beside the books and notebooks he’s been using since the morning of that day. It’s weird how the classroom he’s been in was filled with chattering, whisperings, and lectures just a few hours ago and yet, right now, the silence is making his ears ring.
“Ah,” Beomgyu finally lets out a frustrated sound, something he’s been keeping inside since the minute the class ended.
He immediately regretted it though when he noticed Yunjin and Chaeryeong somewhere around the room, a reminder that he’s actually not alone here. Although, neither of the two budged, probably drowned in their own studying world.
It’s CSAT season and it might look just like some normal pre-college exams to outsiders, but to Beomgyu and to all of his classmates, it’s a powerful thing that will pre-determine how successful and how secured their future will be. Because if it’s not, then there must be no reason for them to stay inside the school premises until 10 pm every day just to review.
Beomgyu looks at his wristwatch— 5:29 PM. It explains why there are only 3 people inside right now. The rest of their classmates went home first, probably to eat outside, get some air, and return at 6 o’clock to start studying.
Why is Beomgyu here and not outside? Well, he might have the vibe of a rule-breaker and a stubborn student, but Beomgyu is quite the opposite. His house is too far from his school and it’s a waste of time if he doesn’t finish the homework they all need to pass within the week before he starts reviewing. It’s a habit he already created to avoid the piling up of his assignments and so far, it works well for him. He knows it will just overwhelm him in the future, so, he doesn’t want to risk any of that.
With 30 more minutes to spare, Beomgyu already finished his history essay and 2 activities for their English class. He sighs, the tiredness and exhaustion from attending a total of 8 hours of classes and 2 hours of doing his homework finally dawning on him.
And then, he hears a grumble. It was from his stomach. Oh, yeah. That’s when Beomgyu realized he hasn’t eaten anything except for the bread he ate during lunch. Yes, it’s not a proper lunch, but he has no other choice when he had to attend a meeting at the same time.
Ignoring the growl he heard from his own body and deciding to just eat later after everything, he, then, picks up his walkman and replaces the Tango in the Night cassette tape that he put in before he started his essay with another Fleetwood Mac tape he brought from home. Beomgyu knows it’s gonna be a long day and he needs his music to actually concentrate on working.
Beomgyu was about to put on his headphones and tuck his face into his arms on the table to get a nap until the chair beside him moved and made a screeching noise as it creates friction with the floor, hopefully not on its own. Of course, it got his attention, even Yunjin turned around and looked at him before shaking her head.
“Hey, baby.”
Dizziness. That is what he felt in his head the moment he turned his head to the empty chair.
Well, that’s because the empty chair is currently occupied now by Choi Soobin, sitting on it the improper way— chair’s back facing the desk, Soobin’s legs on each side of the said chair’s back, and his arms resting on it. Until now, his body reacts to Soobin like he’s a crush Beomgyu never sees, which is not true (It’s probably the fact that he’s running on 3 hours of sleep, but Beomgyu likes to romanticize his life with Soobin.).
The plastic bag he carelessly put on Beomgyu’s desk also didn’t go unnoticed as the smell of food reeked from it, rushing to get into Beomgyu’s olfactory nerves. Oh my god, he brought me food, Beomgyu screams inside his head.
Soobin grins at him before he reaches out his arm to caress Beomgyu’s cold cheek. The latter just looks at him with surprise, eyes fully on Soobin and lips parted at him.
“I figured you’d be hungry right now. You didn’t eat earlier,” he mumbles with eyes still looking intently at Beomgyu, “This is from the nearby ramen stall, by the way. No egg. Just what you like— Oh, and gimbap.”
Beomgyu takes Soobin’s hand from his face with both of his hands, caressing it gently just like how Soobin was touching his cheek earlier. He glances at Soobin, who’s still smiling at him fondly as he tilted his head and rests it on his arm at the back of the chair. It was a quick glance before Beomgyu completely diverted his attention to the huge hand he was holding. Emphasis on huge because he needs his two hands to hold it; his one hand can only carry a few fingers.
“You didn’t have to,” the younger one murmurs, almost inaudibly, but Soobin moves his chair closer at the same time, slowly closing their distance.
“I cannot not buy you something when you’re all I’m thinking about while I eat alone outside. Which is fine by me, because you’re just being the studious boyfriend that you are.” A sweet chuckle escapes Soobin’s lips, quickly traveling into Beomgyu’s reddening ears, before he added, “You’re doing so well, you know that?”
Energetic and not-sleep-deprived Beomgyu would’ve retaliated with something along the lines of ‘You’re being so cheesy’ and ‘Why are you so obsessed with me, hyung?’, but tired Beomgyu just opened his mouth, only for him to close it again when he couldn’t get words to say to Soobin from his tongue.
Tired Beomgyu needed these words and Soobin gave them to him without Beomgyu even asking.
He slowly lets go of Soobin’s hand, feeling a bit emotional by how Soobin can comfort him before he even opens up about what he is feeling. Beomgyu tries to even out his breathing, looking at everything except for his boyfriend sitting close beside him. Or else, he might cry, knowing that he has been suppressing all these emotions to get through all the memorizing, revising, and familiarizing for a stupid exam that can make him or ruin him.
Beomgyu knows he shouldn’t keep it all inside— he knows he needs to cry it out sometimes— the thing is he has no time to do that in between all the academic and social activities he needs to balance. Beomgyu thought his life is quite fucked up on that part because how does he have to arrange a time to even reflect on his emotions?
This unusual reaction caught Soobin’s attention, his smile faltered and his serious face suddenly overtook his soft persona just a few seconds ago. Beomgyu didn’t see it, but he knows it by the tone of Soobin’s voice.
“Baby,” Soobin says before taking both of Beomgyu’s hands, “You okay? You wanna eat first?”
Beomgyu exhaled heavily as he tells himself he can let it out later. He, then, finally looks up at Soobin to meet his worried eyes. Feeling his negative emotions all at once, Beomgyu shakes his head. His hunger is the least of his worry right now. He’s worried now that he’s too tired to continue studying today, something that is out of his options.
“I don’t think so. I’m sorry.” He bites his bottom lip a little, “I’ll just eat it later.”
“You don’t look okay, Beomgyu-ya. Are you sure?” Beomgyu nods. “What do you want to do then? You wanna nap first?”
That. That sounds fantastic to him. As the saying goes, nothing can ever beat the power of a nap (He’s not sure if that saying is real.). So, he nods again at Soobin. The elder just smiles at him, and squeezes his hand a little before standing up to sit properly on the chair.
“Come here. Let’s get you some power nap.”
Beomgyu looks at him confusedly before Soobin makes space in between his legs, probably for his boyfriend to sit on. The former gives him a wide eye, making Soobin’s eyes crinkle a little because of the little laugh he let out, disbelief painting on his face.
“I’m gonna rock you to sleep, c’mon now. It’s not like our classmates are gonna be bothered,” Soobin mumbles as he continues to gesture Beomgyu to take the space in front of his body.
Now that his boyfriend mentioned their classmates, Beomgyu quickly spares his surroundings a look and finally notices that there are more people inside now. Ryujin, Haechan, Minjeong, Heeseung— and a lot more of his classmates are back from outside and Soobin is being this shameless.
He’s right. No one cares about them because they all know they’re together and lastly they all have their own shit to deal with to even give the two their attention.
Beomgyu sighs.
He looks at Soobin again and, unsurprisingly, Soobin is still staring at him, which is something that makes him self-conscious because once Soobin sees him, he just wants to keep looking and as much as that makes Beomgyu feel loved and inflate his ego a little, it still makes him blush.
He gave him a defeated look, making Soobin grin as Beomgyu stood up and comfortably sat in between Soobin's legs. They fit on the chair because it’s a big one, something the younger is thankful for, or else he’d be sitting directly on Soobin’s lap. Not that he hasn’t done that, but that’s beside the point.
The taller rests his arms at the table in front of them while his chin is on Beomgyu’s shoulder.
“You should nap now. I’ll wake you up a little after 6. Just to give you more time to rest. Are you okay with that,” Soobin asks in a soft whisper into his ear to which Beomgyu just answers with a small nod and a small mhm.
A kiss was planted on his cheek a second after that, and in the next second after the kiss, Soobin has already put his things on the side, making space for Beomgyu to lie his head down. He gets another kiss—more like a peck or a pair of lips touching Beomgyu’s face because of how soft it was—before Beomgyu finally stretches his arm on the table, resting his head on one of his arms.
Beomgyu immediately forgets wanting to blush at how he feels so— for the lack of words in the English vocabulary to describe Soobin, his actions, and the effects of his actions on him—loved because of Soobin’s soft kiss the moment he closes his eyes and felt Soobin’s warmth engulf him from behind as the older one leans down and rests his own head on Beomgyu’s.
He can feel Soobin’s own heartbeat against his back and if he’s not tired and all over the place right now, he’ll notice how their breathing starts to match each other subconsciously because of how close they are, literally and figuratively. Beomgyu starts to drift to the napland as the noise around them is now muted and the only thing he can hear is Soobin’s little puffs of air, very close to his ear.
And Soobin seems to be getting into it, too, as his reality is slowly molding into just the two of them. His arms that have been resting beside each of Beomgyu’s arms move on their own, taking the hand of his boyfriend that has been hanging for the past minutes.
Beomgyu’s hand is so much smaller than his that Soobin’s hand can completely engulf Beomgyu’s if he closes his palms around it. Thinking about how Beomgyu must be so stressed right now, Soobin’s thumb quietly worked with Beomgyu’s fingers, circling the said thumb gently on top of every knuckle and in between them. He didn’t forget massaging the palm, too, the moment he reached it.
Soobin continues that with his left hand while his right-hand works on stroking Beomgyu’s soft hair. His hair is short because of the school laws, but he knows Beomgyu wants to grow it the moment they graduate. Soobin smiles at the thought of Beomgyu with long hair.
Pretty, he thought as he lifted off his head a bit to check if Beomgyu’s already asleep. He is, and he looks the most angelic like this despite the dark circles under his eyes because nobody will notice that when his lashes are this long and pretty.
Soobin tried to fight the intrusive thoughts to pepper his boyfriend’s face with kisses, knowing that Beomgyu might wake up, so he settled in by nuzzling the younger’s cheeks (Which smells like baby cologne for some reason, by the way.) before he went back to his prior position.
Their classmates passing by Beomgyu’s table just gave them a look— either a fond one, a teasing one or an annoyed one (Well, they’re basically PDA-ing, people hate that.)— but Soobin remains unbothered, still massaging Beomgyu’s hand, stroking Beomgyu’s hair, closing his eyes to drift away with Beomgyu just for a minute.
Well, Soobin didn’t anticipate that he will also fall asleep, which should be expected because they’ve been studying for roughly just the same amount of time. The two wake up because of something poking them by their arms.
Beomgyu wakes up first, feeling Soobin all over his body— the hand on his hair, the hand holding his own hand, and his entire body basically hugging him. Soobin followed shortly after, finally giving Beomgyu the space he needed.
“It’s 6:10 now, c’mon, work for the future now, lovebirds,” Ryujin says in a playful tone, nudging them both, before going back to her table located at the right side of Beomgyu.
Soobin mumbles thanks to the girl before giving her a thumbs up. Beomgyu, on the other hand, looks like he’s still in the sleeping zone, letting himself fall back down on Soobin’s front.
The elder feigns a tired grunt, “You’re so heavy.”
Beomgyu lets out a loud scoff.
“You say that like you didn’t put your entire weight on me for the last 30 minutes.”
“I’m just kidding.” Soobin laughs, air from his lips fanning at the side of Beomgyu’s head. “I love you, you know that?”
He’s heard that before—not a lot, but when Soobin says it, it’s probably because Beomgyu’s presence and entire existence is overwhelming at the moment. The thought rushed blood upon his cheeks, chuckles, and whispers of You’re so annoying left his lips.
“God, you’re insufferable. I just woke up from my stress nap, give me a break, will you?” Beomgyu sits up properly to turn his body a little and face Soobin.
Their faces are just a few inches away and Soobin is already looking at him in the eyes with his fond look and smile that shows his dimples.
He felt a hand on his waist, Soobin slightly squeezing it, an involuntary movement probably because he doesn’t know what to do with his hand. Beomgyu just took the boy’s free band, intertwining it with his.
“Do you feel better now? Think you can ace the exam,” Soobin asks in a low voice, probably an attempt to make this conversation as private as they can in a public classroom. Dumb, he knows.
“Mmhm.” Beomgyu smiles at him with the smile that makes him lose his pupils. He leaned in next to rest his head on Soobin’s shoulder. The position is quite uncomfortable but bearable for Beomgyu just to get that affection from Soobin. “Thank you.”
“Shhh, it’s nothing.” Soobin, then, caresses his back.
“I love you, too.” Beomgyu sits up to meet Soobin’s soft gaze, “You already know that.”
“I do know tha—”
Soobin’s words got cut off because of a voice that joins their conversation.
“Do you guys know we can hear you here no matter how much you try? We didn’t ask for some live-action rom-com tonight. Get a grip,” Haechan emphasizes in his last words, even shaking his head in the process.
Beomgyu already formed a rebuttal in his head, how Haechan can only say that because he can never be with Mark in one classroom again (He’s a graduate already.), but someone in the crowd protested again. They didn’t pay attention to who it was anymore.
“And we literally woke you up for you guys to study. Not to give us this shitshow. You guys are the reason we’re single.”
The two just giggle before Beomgyu leaves a final peck on Soobin’s cheek. Oh, yeah, that definitely earned gagging noises and cringe faces from everyone. It’s not a problem, they both love provoking them.
The crowd probably cheered the moment Soobin stood up to go back to his seat, which is a few seats away from Beomgyu at the back. They both like that, knowing that being near each other might just cause a distraction for the both of them. They’re not that whipped to sacrifice their studies just to be near each other, duh.
Beomgyu takes a bite of the gimbap, which is already a bit cold but it’s tolerable. He eats it to the last bits before arranging his books once again on the table and reaching for his Walkman and headphones to prepare himself for studying.
The realization just sunk in on Beomgyu. He feels so different from the person he was before Soobin came in. Beomgyu’s logical head says it’s probably just the nap, but his heart wants something else. Follow your heart, they say, right?
Beomgyu gives Soobin all the credit because if Soobin wasn’t here, he’s probably crying right now at how messy his mind is from all the things he needs to finish. If Soobin wasn’t here, Beomgyu’s stomach would probably still be growling from how hungry he is. If Soobin wasn’t here, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep that well, anxious about what the future is going to give him.
Beomgyu blinks at the thought as he gives his heart a room to pound.
He turns around to glance at Soobin at the back of the room, who now has his CSAT reviewer open and black headphones on. But it’s like Soobin has some antenna because he looks up at him, smiling and giving him a Fighting! pose.
Beomgyu shakes his head with a smile, turning his back on him to continue what he’s doing.
God, he loves Soobin. And Soobin loves him just as much. Who is he to ask for something grander than this feeling?
He can do this because Soobin says so. Beomgyu can do it because Soobin is always right there for him.
Finally clicking the play button of his Walkman, his ears heard the first notes of Fleetwood Mac’s Say You Love Me. Beomgyu smiles wide as he opens his own reviewer and notebook, thinking about how he’s going to kiss Soobin later as a prize once they reach home.
(“Do you think we should wake them up? They look peaceful there,” Minjeong says as she looks at the couple sleeping fondly.
“Yeah, the moment they wake up, they’re going to make us suffer again,” Chenle jokes, a proof he’s listening despite being busy in his latest Gameboy.
“They’re so cute when they’re quiet like that.” Yunjin, currently taking a break, says as she spares them a glance.
Shuhua sighs. “I wish we had a video camera right now. The world would’ve been a better place if cameras were affordable, don’t you think?”
Ryujin laughs before saying something along the lines of why they are getting sentimental over the annoying couple sleeping and Sumin butts in the conversation by saying they’re just cute. The former just rolled his eyes.
“If Beomgyu hears that, he’ll never let it die and spread rumors that they’re the couple of the year.”
Sumin just groaned. Ryujin proceeds to wake them up, the couple immediately flirting the moment they wake up, and wow, she has never regretted a decision more than this.)