Work Text:
The digital clock on his nightstand reads three o’ clock when Hyunjin starts thinking that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to get this particular project done at this time of the day, or night rather.
He lets out a dramatic sigh, the tips of his fingers rubbing his eyes. He already knew this thing was going to be a handful, and it would end up in a long caffeine-fueled night; what he didn’t predict was how tired he was going to get just by working on the model for one hour and a half more or less, and he still has plenty to go.
The 3D model he’s making it’s just not working. It’s not the first time he uses this kind of software but he’s still getting the tools confused, he can’t figure out why every texture he downloads looks so awful, and overall it’s not even close to how perfect and pristine the idea looked in his head. In conclusion, this thing is gonna suck, and it’s not like he can really afford having a bad grade in this class; not quite, considering how he didn’t get enough time to organize his shit before his last exam in the subject.
Hyunjin takes one last look at the two-story house floating in the gray grid, he makes it do a 360 degree turn with the wheel of his mouse. If you zoom out it doesn’t look that disastrous, but if you take even the tiniest of looks it’s obvious that he’s doing this two-week-long project in a few hours of cramming.
He gets up from the carpet on the bedroom floor. This is officially a crisis.
His phone is only at 48% of battery even if he left it charging for at least an hour now, and Seungmin will probably hate and curse him in the morning for calling at this time of the night, but at the same time he just needs this. He needs to hear from him before he goes insane trying to do this shit by himself.
So he unplugs the device and clicks on Seungmin’s contact, it tells him that he was last online three hours and a half ago. Hyunjin groans, he really doesn’t want to bother his friend but, in his defense, Seungmin’s already out of this nightmare called ‘college’ and he basically abandoned Hyunjin to his own device now, so he should get to make an emergency call at least once a year, right?
He clicks on the calling button before he can think himself out of doing this. It’s okay, breath in, breath out. It’s just fine.
“Hello?” Seungmin’s groggy and sleep-heavy voice greets him at the other side of the line.
“Hey Minnie” He almost scares himself by the tenderness of how he says this, a soothing relief accompanied by it.
“Hyunjin, are you okay? Did something happen?” There’s a pointedness to his tone, and Hyunjin can hear a sound of rustling sheets, probably Seungmin sitting up in his big king sized bed.
He pretends he doesn’t immediately feel a certain heat spreading in his chest when thinking that Seungmin is worrying about him, that he could cause that type of reaction from his friend at the mere thought of him being in danger.
“I’m fine, don’t worry” He hears a sigh. “I’m sorry for calling so late, I kinda knew you’d be asleep but I just wanted to- I…well, I’m struggling here to be honest”
“What’s wrong?” Seungmin’s voice sounds definitely more awake now.
Hyunjin sighs, he sits on his bed with his back against the wall.
“I just have this project due tomorrow and I kinda procrastinated on it, but it’s not exactly like I’ve been lazing around all week either. I just have so many things to do and it feels like my to-do list never ends and it’s all so exhausting” He rants.
“Okay. I know what you mean, don’t worry I’ve been there too, remember?”
“Yeah, I know I know”
“How stressed from a scale of one to ten do you feel right now?”
“Uhh…a six? Six point five, maybe?”
“Okay, it’s good to make a little self-assessment when you feel like this. Do you actually feel it will be worth it if you stay up all night?”
Hyunjin glances down at the carpeted floor where his laptop and notes are, the screen went dark because of the lack of activity but still, he knows what that damn house looks like already. The thing is he can work on it a bit more in order to look at least presentable, but it will take at least one hour more, which would leave him with only three hours of sleep before his morning lectures.
He tells Seungmin this, he explains that he really wants to give up and just go to sleep but at the same time he knows he can’t just hand this in as it is, it would be an actual embarrassment from him as a third year student.
“I have an idea. You can still do something else if you don’t like it but I think you actually will”
“...Okay”
“You can set a timer on your phone, just one hour, sixty minutes; you get to work on polishing the model as much as you can during that time. We could do a video call if you want, so you know that I’m here with you and you don’t feel so alone if that helps”
“You’re already awake, aren’t you?” He says, trying to mask his excitement at the suggestion with some teasing, just because he knows Seungmin.
“You could say so, a jerk just called me and woke me up from my beauty sleep” He laughs.
“What an asshole” He plays up the bit with a big smile on his face.
Some things never change.
They end up clowning around for a while longer before Seungmin warns him that it’s already 3:43 in the morning and that he should start setting up that timer, Hyunjin does as he’s told with no hesitation after that.
He works on the model with a little more determination now that Seungmin’s watching him from the screen of his laptop, and although he can’t see him fully (he’s got both the program and the skype app opened), he’s actually much more focused and productive than what he was before calling him. There’s something about having Seugmin’s presence with him while he works, even if he’s not saying anything because he knows that Hyunjin needs to work in silence, he knows that he must have picked up some type of document to work on his own. And he was right, just having him there (even if he’s not actually there) makes it so worth it to keep himself awake for another hour.
When the alarm goes off telling him that the time is up, he takes a few more minutes to make sure everything is ready to send and puts the file in an usb just in case.
“Alright, all set” Hyunjin announces, now putting all his attention on the skype tab, and just like he expected, Seungmin seems distracted while typing something on his own computer.
He doesn’t say anything to call his attention again, just kind of taking some time to admire his concentrated face, he looks so cute and soft when concentrating on his work. Hyunjin wants to be able to pull him from the laptop screen and get him to cuddle with him in his bed.
“You finished? Ah sorry” Seungmin says after a few seconds.
“You’re gorgeous” He whispers without a moment’s hesitation.
Seungmin looks frozen for a second, and Hyunjin thinks it might be the sucky internet connection but then he notices he’s actually blushing in silence. So freaking cute.
“Shut up” He says with a roll of his eyes, but his smile and the fondness of his voice gives him away.
“Love you, Seungminnie” Hyunjin giggles. “Thank you for listening and staying up with me until I finished the project, it means a lot.”
“It’s nothing, I was actually thinking about you before I went to bed, you know?”
“Oh? It was destiny then” He says confidently, giving his friend an exaggerated love-y expression.
“I’m gonna hang up” Seungmin threatens.
“Okay okay, that’s fair” He says because they both should get to bed right now if they want to be of any use the following morning.
“Good night, Jinnie” Seungmin’s soft voice goes from the static speakers of his laptop right into Hyunjin’s heart, yeah it’s cheesy but it’s also true.
“Good night, baby” He might be a little too insane because of the sleep deprivation but he regrets nothing as he sees Seungmin’s flustered expression before he hangs up fake-annoyed.
Hyunjin laughs by himself.
And if he feels a thousand times more motivated during the rest of that week, well, that may be just a coincidence.