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Somewhere in his seventh hour of studying today, Renjun hits his limit. It’s strange, really, how his brain just shuts down, closes the blinds, locks the door, and leaves him floundering in a mess of thoughts, tears, and smudged graphite. Like a switch. His brain just… shuts off.
So now he stares at his practice exam blankly, hunched over in his seat resembling more of a shrimp than a human, and gently places his pencil down. He takes a deep breath.
Fuck.
His exhale is shaky, and he rubs at his face, preferring to press the heels of his palms into his eyes, little bits of red and green erupting behind his vision. It’s better than the pain of page after page of useless scribbles. Better than the searing burn of his computer screen, spouting answers at him that he should know , but he really just doesn’t, and apparently he’s just useless, he doesn’t belong in his major, he doesn’t deserve to be at the university, he’s just dragging the program down because he fucking forgot how to evaluate a fucking limit-
He takes a deep breath because he is also self aware and knows that these are completely irrational thoughts.
That doesn’t mean they don’t hurt though. And maybe what if they’re a little bit true? Because he can’t evaluate a fucking limit, which is one of the first things he learned back in BC Calc in high school , so if he can’t even understand the basic premise of calculus he is definitely going to fail his final tomorrow.
And he laughs a little, a pitiful little sound in the silence of his room. It’s kind of pathetic and wet and sad, and he feels slightly worse now.
Blinking his eyes open, his contacts burning his eyes because he’s had them in for almost eighteen hours now, Renjun stares at his computer screen through a curtain of hair. He should really get it cut – it’s gotten to the point where he has to tie it back to brush his teeth or eat – but a), he’s a broke college student who would rather wait until winter break so his mom can cut his hair free of charge, and b), Jaemin likes it long, had almost cried when Renjun had suggested cutting it, so Renjun’s poor little heart had taken a flying leap off a cliff and given in to Jaemin’s wishes.
Through hazy vision and a cloudy mind, Renjun almost misses the notification that pops up on the top right corner of his screen, a little green flicker that catches his eye. It slips away before he can make out a name. Which is good, he decides, because he has to focus now and study so he can not fail this exam and ruin his grade.
So it’s with sheer determination and an unhealthy amount of stress that Renjun picks up his pencil again. He takes his notebook, flips to a new page, and reads the problem again. And again. Once more, and then it finally registers in his mind.
He blinks down at the page in front of him and copies it down. He reads it again. He tries to remember how to approach it. He thinks he remembers. He tries a method. It doesn’t work.
He exhales and pretends not to notice the tightness in his throat.
And so he tries again, flipping back to his earlier notes for good measure. Finding a relatively similar example, he tries those steps (which he had done earlier). The steps don’t work, because the answer on his paper does not match the answer on the screen. Maybe it’s the wrong answer key-?
No, it’s not, because he had already checked before, after he had gotten the first few problems wrong. Maybe he copied the problem wrong? No, it’s right. Maybe it’s just him? Maybe it’s just because he’s incompetent? Maybe he just really sucks at math? Maybe he’s just really fucking stupid?
The next inhale he takes is okay. The exhale is a shudder. And then he inhales again, trembling, shaking, and his next exhale is a choked sob. And then another sob. And another, and then his nose is running, and he’s letting out these pathetic little sniffles, and his vision turns blurry (at least his contacts stop burning), and he’s crying.
It’s not like this is new to him – he’s done this exact same thing before: studied his ass off for a test, burned out while trying to understand a concept, and then felt completely incompetent and broke down. He is very well aware that he’s overwhelmed, is being irrational and dramatic, and he needs to stop , because he needs to get back to studying.
Renjun stares at his notebook and watches paper turn dark under his tears. He watches the light blue, gridded lines warp with the water, blinks, and then the stain has reached his pencil marks too. An ugly stain. Pathetic.
When his computer screen turns dark, Renjun pushes his chair back. It’s just him and the silence of his room now. He doesn’t know what time it is, and frankly, he doesn’t want to know. He curls up on the chair, bringing his legs up to wrap his arms around them, and buries his face in his arms.
College isn’t really what he expected. The media, his parents, his teachers, and his hyungs always talk about it as the most fun he will have in his life – they talk about the parties, the friends, the memories, and the freedom, reminiscing and laughing, but Renjun doesn’t think that he and them are on the same wavelength.
College is lonely. It’s an entirely new environment with new people, places, and things to try, things to do, things to experience, and it’s kind of stressful, maybe kind of fun, but Renjun thinks it would be a whole lot more fun if he just had somebody to experience these things with. His friend group had split up across the country for college – Donghyuck is spending his first semester abroad, actually – and for the first time in, really, for the first time in his life, Renjun feels truly alone.
It’s actually quite easy to talk to people. Renjun has perfected the art of introducing himself by now. He’s memorized his little spheal – Hi, I’m Renjun, he/him, what’s your name? Nice to meet you. What major are you in? Oh, cool! Do you have Instagram? – but that only gets him so far. He meets up with people after DMing them, gets lunch sometimes, smiles and laughs as applicable, but he misses his old friends. He misses their closeness, he misses the cuddle sessions, the movie nights, the carpools, the inside jokes, and he misses having someone around to turn to when he’s struggling.
He misses Jaemin most of all. Jaemin, whose laugh warms him from the inside out, who takes it upon himself as a personal challenge to fluster Renjun as much as possible, whose hugs feel so safe and so much like home, who can just smile and Renjun feels instantly better. He’s a few hours drive away, having accepted a rather generous scholarship to the main tech school in the state, while Renjun had gotten into the honors, accelerated degree program at the state university.
Renjun curls himself tighter in his seat. It’s cold in his room – his desk is near the window – but he doesn't feel like getting up to turn the heat on.
Long distance is hard, but they’re making it work. After all, it is the twenty-first century – watching movies over Zoom make great date nights. Jaemin still spam-texts him every day without fail, they still send each other a ridiculous amount of Instagram reels, and they FaceTime almost every other day.
But it’s at moments like these that Renjun misses him the most. The spikiness in his throat hurts because he’s trying to keep his sobs quiet – the walls are kind of thin and he doesn’t want to disturb his neighbors – and he feels completely, utterly, exhausted.
He needs to go back to studying. He’s barely started this practice exam. He should at least do two of them before the test tomorrow, and he needs to sleep soon because he’s gotten an average of maybe four, maybe five hours of sleep per day for the past couple of weeks, and he has a fifteen minute walk to get to the lecture hall tomorrow for the exam, and goddammit, he needs to study .
But he’s exhausted and sad. So maybe that’s why he misses the sound of the key turning in the lock and the door opening. But he doesn’t miss his voice.
“Surprise!” And then Renjun’s poor little heart misses a beat, drops down into his stomach, and starts hammering away. He whips his tearstained, puffy face out of his arms, squinting into the light. Backlit by the light spilling in from the hallway, wrapped in a knee-length, puffy jacket, is Jaemin.
Renjun freezes.
Jaemin’s got a bright smile on his face, his eyes curved into warm crescents. A key ring dangles from his fingers, and the keys clink together when he stretches his arms out wide, inviting, welcoming, and Renjun can’t help it – he starts crying again.
“I- oh, Injunnie ,” He hears Jaemin say, his voice bleeding with worry, and it takes him only three strides to cross the room to gather Renjun in his arms. And then he’s hugging Renjun, one hand cupping the nape of his neck, the other rubbing soothing circles into his back, and Renjun just cries harder because…
He’s being hugged. It has been months since he’s hugged someone last (his parents when they had dropped him off at his dorm). And he isn’t that big on physical touch – some days it repulses him, some days he’ll tolerate it – but it has been so long since he’s been held like this, comforted like this, felt so warm and understood and safe , that it feels like his heart has been torn open. Bleeding.
They stay like that for a few minutes, or maybe it’s longer. Jaemin keeps rubbing his back, stroking the hairs at the base of his neck, and Renjun keeps crying because he’s overwhelmed and exhausted and sad and happy and overall, quite confused, so his burnt out brain does the math and opens up the waterworks to let all of his emotions out in one big mess.
Once Renjun has calmed down enough to open his eyes, he stares at Jaemin through a clouded vision, not quite sure what he’s seeing is real. He inhales shakily, trying not to break into tears again, and Jaemin smiles at him, moving his hand to wipe at the corner of his eye with his thumb. His hair is its usual soft pink, just barely visible from the glow of his computer screen on his desk, and his eyes are their usual comforting brown, reflecting the artificial light of the screen like little stars.
“Are you okay?” Jaemin asks quietly, concern in his eyes and a soft, comforting smile on his face. Renjun nods, not trusting his voice at the moment. He blinks once, and Jaemin swipes his thumb over his cheekbone again. It feels nice, so he leans into his touch.
Renjun blinks again, and somewhere deep inside his brain, some synapses fire and produce a Thought, and he wonders why Jaemin is here. He’s supposed to still be in finals week working on some big project for his robotics class. Last time Renjun had asked him, Jaemin had told him he’d be coming home next weekend. Jaemin is an entire three days early, and he’s at Renjun’s college, in his dorm, not back in their hometown.
Jaemin cups his cheek in his palm, and Renjun’s eyes flutter closed again. For the first time that day, he feels a glimmer of warmth spark to life inside of him.
“Jaemin,” He starts, his voice cracking, his lips dry. He wets them and tries again. “Jaemin, why- how are you here?”
“We ended up finishing the project early, so I thought I’d surprise you by visiting you at the dorm,” Jaemin replies, and he’s still softly smiling because he’s Jaemin, but his eyes are filled with worry and he searches Renjun’s gaze, eyes flitting from his mussed hair, to his curled frame, to the tear tracks on his cheeks. “I took the train here. But disregarding that, are you okay?”
And then Renjun realizes that he’s still holding his legs to his chest, his shoulders tensed up to his ears, and he has to physically tell himself to relax. Jaemin hugs him tighter, and Renjun leans forward to drop his head into Jaemin’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around him in a real hug.
“M’fine,” He says into the thick, padded material of Jaemin’s coat. It’s kind of smothering him, but it smells like Jaemin, warmth, safety, and home, so Renjun breathes in as deeply as he can before sliding his forehead a bit further down so his nose is free. “Thank you for coming, Min-ah, I… thank you.”
“I’m here for you always, through everything and anything, okay?” Jaemin whispers into the top of Renjun’s head, squeezing him tighter. “Do you want to talk about it at all?”
“It’s okay, it’s just,” Renjun takes a breath, mind flitting back to the pages upon pages of notes, scribbled out numbers and letters, the stars on the problems that he missed and needs to go back to, the whole other exam he needs to take before sleeping tonight, the plain black letters on the harsh white background telling him no, that’s not the right answer , and he leans further into Jaemin, almost completely out of his chair now. “I have my math final tomorrow and I’ve been studying all day on top of writing my paper for my other class, and I just can’t get this one problem and it stressed me out a ridiculous amount, and I’m kind of being pathetic and dramatic and a little bitch and-” Jaemin hugs him tighter, one hand at the back of Renjun’s head pushing him into his shoulder, and Renjun kind of can’t breathe, so he makes some sort of muffled whine and tries to pull back. Jaemin lets him struggle for a few seconds but relents eventually.
“ Jaemin-”
“What did I say about self-deprecation?” Renjun glares at Jaemin through the mess of hair in front of his eyes, arms now crossed over his chest and leaning back in his chair.
“That it’s bad and I shouldn’t do it, but-”
“No ‘buts’ Renjunnie. When you say mean things about yourself it hurts me too, because I care about you and would fight anyone who would dare say those things to you, and that includes you.” Jaemin pokes his nose and Renjun halfheartedly tries to swat his hand away. He then sighs, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.
“I know, but it’s hard.” His voice grows quieter, almost to a whisper. Jaemin hums, low and soothing.
“I know baby, and I know you’re trying, and I’m proud of you for that.” Renjun feels his heart twist at the pet name, something he’s heard countless times over the phone for the past few months, but now Jaemin is here, in front of him, and it just hits different.
“I missed you a lot.” Renjun whispers to the ceiling, blinking up at the expanse of dull white, lit by the glow of his computer screen.
“I missed you too.” Jaemin says, something raw in his voice. Renjun feels him take his hand and start to rub small circles into the back of it. He closes his eyes. He’s exhausted. He’s stressed. But now Jaemin is here, and he’s warm.
He’s happy.
Jaemin’s coat rustles as he stands up, but Renjun doesn’t open his eyes when he hears him moving around. He does crack one eye open when Jaemin accidentally hits the closet, his lips curling into a faint smile as he watches his boyfriend try and lug his suitcase over the pile of shoes he keeps by the door.
“Freeloader,” Renjun says, no bite to it as Jaemin sets his stuff down in the corner, draping his jacket over the end of Renjun’s bed like he owns the space.
“Boyfriend privileges,” Jaemin replies, flopping down on the bed and hugging Renjun’s giant Moomin plushie tight to his chest. “And if I’m not mistaken, boyfriend privileges include kisses too, right?” He beams, and Renjun feels his heart bleed again, but this time it’s welcome, more of a warmth than a pain. Jaemin then makes a rather ridiculous kissy face and Renjun scoffs goodnaturedly.
“Okay, okay,” He relents, after Jaemin starts to make kissy sounds at him too, a blush rising in his cheeks. “One kiss, okay? But then I have to get back to studying.” Standing up from his chair makes a good number of his joints crack, and Jaemin laughs at him from the bed.
“You’ve gotten so much older since I last saw you, wow-”
“Shut up,” Renjun says, but there’s a smile on his face as he moves in front of Jaemin, looking down at him with such warmth kindling in his heart. Jaemin smiles up at him, his eyes wrinkling in the corners, and spreads his legs to allow Renjun to stand between them. His arms loop around his waist, tugging him in closer.
“Make me,” Jaemin smirks, which is such a Jaemin thing to do that Renjun feels a swell of emotions rise in him, and before he feels the urge to cry again he swoops down, pauses a moment just to tease him, his breath fanning out over Jaemin’s lips, and then pecks him lightly before pulling away.
“Okay, now back to studying-” He starts, making to move back to his desk, but then Jaemin half whines, half growls, and Renjun lets out a delighted little laugh as the arms around his waist tighten, yanking him down until he’s practically seated in Jaemin’s lap. A blush rises high on his cheeks and he stares down at Jaemin, transfixed, unable to look away. Jaemin’s eyes are dark, eyes fixed on Renjun’s mouth.
“Renjunnie,” Jaemin starts, his tone light and sweet, “I have been waiting a whole three months, ninety one and some days to kiss you again, and-”
“Yeah, yeah, me too,” Renjun says, a little breathless, a little impatient, then leans down to capture Jaemin’s lips in a real kiss.
Jaemin tastes like kimbap, which is honestly kind of gross, but Renjun figures that he had dinner on the train and hasn’t had time to brush his teeth yet. Even though they’re both impatient, this kiss is gentle. It’s soothing, it’s warm, it’s familiar, and it’s comforting. He feels Jaemin smile, exhaling a little laugh into Renjun’s mouth, and then he nips Renjun’s bottom lip and it turns deeper, more languid, heavier. Renjun lets him explore his mouth, a soft whimper escaping him as Jaemin moves his hands up to cup the back of his head, angling him to the side, hugging him close, and he’s so fucking happy that he could cry again.
“Junnie,” Jaemin whispers between kisses, “Sweetheart-”
“Mmmh?” Renjun hums, moving to nose at Jaemin’s jawline. He presses little kisses along it, nosing along his neck until he can kiss the spot just under his ear. Jaemin shivers underneath him and Renjun smiles against his skin.
“Babe, you have a final tomorrow,” Jaemin says softly. Renjun whines.
“No I don’t,” He tries, going back to kiss Jaemin again, but his lips land on his cheek instead of his lips.
“You do,” Jaemin laughs a little, gently pushing Renjun away. “You need to study, and I’m going to use the bathroom, and we can kiss a bit more before sleeping, alright?” He leans back on his elbows, laughter on his lips and love in his eyes, and Renjun is absolutely floored. He would do anything for this man.
“Okay,” Renjun finds himself agreeing, and although it pains him, he rolls off of Jaemin’s lap and stands up next to the bed. Jaemin’s still leaning back on the bed, his lips red and his hair mussed. Something physically aches in Renjun’s chest at the sight of him. “Jaemin?”
“Yeah?”
Renjun thinks about his final, about his paper, about the loneliness that college is, about how tired he is all the time, and then he thinks about midnight FaceTime calls, watching the Nightmare Before Christmas over Zoom with the school’s shitty WiFi, the five hundred or so reels in his DMs that he’ll watch all in one sitting, and he feels something blossom in his chest, beautiful, fragile, and lovely.
“I… thank you for coming,” Renjun says quietly. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Junnie.” Jaemin smiles, soft and warm, and everything is okay.