Work Text:
Wasting time was perhaps, Kim Seungmin's ultimate skill. Regardless of the situation, existence of deadlines, and life threatening situations (read: grade threatening), he would always find new methods to waste time.
Currently he sits at the back bench, ignoring his geography lecture on a topic he had a fairly decent idea about. Hey, being a professional time waster meant knowing when to pay attention. Studying the night before exams was reserved for stressing.
But back to the topic on hand, Seungmin was bored. So, so, so bored. His class was normally fairly interesting, but Felix hadn't done something embarrassing yet. Nor had Changbin said anything cringey. Life was too fucking dry.
He looked at his notebook. Then at the ballpen he stole off the art room floor. Then at his partner. His partner was some guy whose name was….Jisung?
Okay sue him, he didn't know all the people in his grade that well. Only the ones that provided entertainment.
He scanned his deskmate's table. Maybe there'd be something scandalous. A love-letter perhaps, maybe a bottle of drugs.
Nothing but colour-coded stationary and a notebook filled with scribblings and drawings of unicorns. Boring.
This Jisung guy was fidgeting a lot though, his hands kept twisting the ring on his ring. It was a pretty ring.
Seungmin wanted a ring now.
He looked at Jisung's colour-coded stationary again. All of it was red. Ugh, of course on top of being colour-coded all his stationary was red. Why not something more tasteful, like mint. Or something with character like pink. Red was so basic. His baby cousin brother would buy red stationary.
But his eyes focused on the red pair of scissors sitting innocuously in his transparent pouch.
If someone looked at Seungmin's face, they would see him wearing an expression that was the epitome of boredom. What they wouldn’t know, was that he was finally excited about something. An idea, a bad idea reared its ugly head in his brain. Seungmin's neurons patted its head an gave it a cookie iced with dopamine.
"Hey, you're name's Jisung right?" he asked, attempting to make his expression friendly. "Could I borrow your scissors?"
Jisung looked surprised, but he just shrugged and passed on his scissors to Seungmin's waiting hands.
Scissors in hand, Seungmin could finally start his grand, fantastic, amazing on every level plan.
He used his compass to draw four of the smallest circles he could and shaded them black with his pencil. He then proceeded to fold the paper quintuple, and used the blaringly red scissors to cut them out as neatly as possible.
Once he was done, he had a stack of somewhat decent circles. But there was a problem. Seungmin had no glue. Jisung had a stick of adhesive, but Seungmin would rather not ask for the safety of his eyes. There was only so much bright red they could take. He looked at the guy beside him…yeah he didn't know this guy's name.
The guy was tall, slender and had long hair. His cheekbones were defined, and although he was made of sharp lines, there was something inherently soft about him. Maybe it was his choice of clothing, a worn out hoodie and a pair of jeans. Or maybe it was the fact he had a cute sloth keychain hanging from his pouch zipper.
Seungmin had seen him hang around with Changbin a couple of times, Felix too. Considering Changbin and Felix ran in the same friend circles it made sense.
Of all the things to get in the way of his grand plan, he refused to let his lack of student knowledge be his kryptonite.
"Hey, do you have any glue?" he asked his other deskmate.
"Uh yeah I think. Give me a second."
The boy bent towards his bag, and suddenly Seungmin could see a sliver of the boy's torso. Ignoring the shadow of a flaming heat in his cheeks he looked at the clock. 35 minutes left.
"Here you go, what's your name by the way? I don't think we've talked before." He offered Seungmin his glue, normal glue unlike the weird red stuff Jisung had.
"My name's Seungmin. You're friends with Felix right? He's actually my neighbor."
"Really, I didn't know that. I'm Hyunjin by the way. What do you want the glue for? I assume it's for something unrelated to-". He paused, looking at the black board. "-tectonic plates?"
"Guess." Seungmin replied simply, shifting his attention to his 20 black paper cut-outs.
Glue in hand he began to roll the cut-outs to resemble conical studs. It was a little harder than what he was expecting, but the results were decent. He put all of them in a corner and arranged his stationary to make a "shelter" to protect them from the fan and aerial forces of nature. 3 pens and a notebook later Seungmin was ready to accept his award for best architecture, but not before he won best fashion designer.
He cut out a strip of paper, as thick as two of his fingers. He measured a length what he hoped would be the correct size. Normally Seungmin wouldn't be too shy to hold a strip of paper to his neck, but normally Seungmin didn't have intimidatingly pretty boys looking at him. After measuring cutting up the paper, he shaded it a red, not the blaring Lightning McQueen esque red Jisung was apparently obsessed with, but a darker red, more sensuous in nature. Well, as sensuous colour pencil on paper could be.
The next step was to make an attachment hook. Unfortunately, metallic wire did not come under the list of essential stationery all high school students must carry, so he improvised.
First he cut up a thick strip of paper, around the width of his thumb. He rolled it into a thin crimpled cylinder.
"Does anyone have cello tape?" he asked out loud, the locus of his concentration on the processed wood pulp between his fingers.
"Here you go man", a voice that sounded like Jisung's said. And considering it came from his left side it probably was him.
He accepted the item and flashed him a quick smile. Now almost everyone in the last two rows was paying attention to him, Seungmin didn't really blame them. Tectonic plates weren't half as boring as the man before them was making them seem.
He used the tape to tighten the crumpled cylinder and strengthen it. He repeated the process again, with a more refined product this time.
The make-do hooks didn't look that promising, but Seungmin was willing to make it work. He had already come so far. He looked up at the clock again, 20 minutes left.
He used Hyunjin's glue, and fingers shaking slightly, he stuck all the paper studs onto the paper. Once that was complete, he stuck on his hooks to the ends of the red strip.
"So you made a choker?" a voice from his right came.
"Close, but no. This-" he said brandishing his hard work,"-is a collar."
Hyunjin was clearly not expecting that answer, obvious from the taken aback look his face expressed. He recovered pretty soon though, and gave Seungmin an appraising look.
"Dude that is so cool" Jisung said. He pointed towards his paper contraption, "Can I see it?"
Mimicking Jisung's shrug from before, he passed it on to Jisung. Once he was done examining the collar he passed it back on. "You going to wear it?" he enquired, one eyebrow raised.
Seungmin looked at the clock again, 4 minutes left. Huh, maybe time went fast when you were interested in something. "Mhm, I think I'll wait till class is over though. Don't want all my hard work to get confiscated."
Approximately 4 minutes 27 seconds later the bell rang, thankfully it was lunch. Seungmin did not waste a second before rushing out of the class. He had almost reached the washroom when he realized Hyunjin was following him. He looked at him questioningly and raised an eyebrow.
Hyunjin seemed embarrassed, his cheeks becoming flushed, but he held firm his eye contact with Seungmin. "I kinda want to see how it looks." he explained, fidgeting with the strap of his bag.
"Sure I guess, you think I can pull off the paper collar look?" Seungmin asked, half joking half serious. He eyed Hyunjin again, who looked less flushed now.
"I don’t know, we'll have to see." Hyunjin replied easily, tone light.
When he faced the mirrors Seungmin suddenly felt a lot more self-conscious. He was wearing a really old black shirt and some black ripped jeans his cousin brother passed down to him. His hair was a mess, and not the 'cute just woke up from a nap' mess. It was the 'my hair isn't cooperating today so I just gave up' kind of mess. Oh well, if Hyunjin was going to judge Seungmin, he was probably already done with it. Might as well move on and not panic about it.
He held up the neckpiece, and placed it around his neck. He pressed the paper-cello tape hooks together, only to fail and almost tear the entire thing apart.
"Here, let me help you." Hyunjin offered, his face unreadable. He gently took the collar and tried hooking the neckpiece again. "The hooks are too thick I think, you mind if I just glue the ends together?"
Seungmin nodded, throat dry from the proximity of Hyunjin's hands to his neck. Hands that left his neck to rummage through his bag, searching for the glue. He hummed as he held the paper to Seungmin's neck again, and pressed the pieces together with adhesive.
Hyunjin looked at the paper in the mirrors reflection, viewing it appraisingly. "This actually doesn't look so bad. You look nice."
Seungmin did not know how to react to that. He rarely got compliments, much less compliments on his looks. He figured his mother's words of support didn't count. In order to not appear like a completely anti-social BDSM enthusiast, he muttered a thanks and ducked his head.
Hyunjin noticed his awkwardness and thankfully ignored it, on the contrary he seemed emboldened by it.
"You seem like you'd be fun to hang out with. Do you want to eat lunch with me? My friends are ditching on me to hang out with their other friends, as if I'm not more important.". Hyunjin said this fake dramatically, his eyes hopeful and looking right into Seungmin's.
And how exactly was Seungmin supposed to reject that?
"Yeah sure, do you mind if my friend joins though? His grandma made carbonara and I don't wanna miss that."
"I love carbonara! Let's go find your friend. What's his name?" Hyunjin asked, already heading out the door.
"Jeongin, he's actually a year younger to us but his family is close with mine.". Seungmin replied, falling in step with Hyunjin's long but lazy strides.
"That sounds so sweet, how long have you known each other?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure. It feels like he's always just been there."
"Ugh this is starting to sound like a sit-com. I moved here like three years ago, so no chance for disgustingly sweet long friendships.". He said these words casually, but Seungmin thought he almost sounded a bit sad about it.
"Do you want a disgustingly sweet relationship?" he prodded, poking at the slight trace of sadness he thought he'd heard.
Hyunjin looked at him directly in the eyes at the question. "Not really, I'm happy with whatever happened. But relationships that long always interest me.". The reply was a little stiff and Seungmin figured they should switch conversation topics soon, before their flow stopped. He was really liking talking to this guy.
"Well, how do you like this place? I've never lived anywhere else so I figure its meh."
"I've lived in only one other place so I'm not really an expert, but I like it more here. The people are…really nice. I would've had a hard time adjusting if it wasn't for Felix."
"I don't know much about Felix, but I've heard nice things about Changbin so yeah. Alright, we're here now." They stood before the open gate of the school "garden", "garden" because it comprised a bunch of benches, some dried up carpet grass and a few random trees and weeds. "We normally eat on that bench, the one under that shriveled up tree. There's barely any shade but not much you can do about that."
As they walked towards the lunch spot, Seungmin looked around for Jeongin. He hadn't come yet, which only meant more time to talk with Hyunjin alone. Seungmin chose to not interpret the feeling that gave him.
"What'd you get for lunch? I think my mom just packed leftovers for me. Fried rice and veggies.". Hyunjin asked, opening his lunch box. It was a simple lunch box, the body pale green with its handles pigmented a darker green.
"Jeongin's actually bringing my lunch for me, his mom told mine not to make anything." he replied sheepishly, embarrassed for no real reason.
"Oh damn, you guys are closer than I thought. Do you both also flash secret codes into each other's room's?" Hyunjin joked. Seungmin didn't reply, causing him to cock an eyebrow. "Oh my god you guys do that didn't you." He seemed delighted at the revelation.
Before Seungmin could fully enact the role of a ripe tomato, Jeongin entered the scene. "Um, hi?" he said, looking towards Hyunjin. He looked questioningly at Seungmin. "Wait, are you wearing a paper collar? What the hell dude, you into BDSM now?"
"Shut up, wearing a collar does not mean I'm into BDSM. Also we're eating lunch with Hyunjin. He very kindly gave me glue." he said, looking at Jeongin's surprised face.
"I also put the collar for you." Hyunjin ever so helpfully added. "Without me who'd have fixed the weird hooks huh?"
"Does that mean Seungmin belongs to you or something? I dunno how all that ownership thingy works. My kinks don't align with this." Jeongin snarked, plopping himself on the ground in front of the bench.
"Okay no, I don't belong to anyone. Hyunjin is simply a supporter of my dreams. Give me the carbonara already jerk.". He said while making grabby hands towards Jeongin's bag.
"Man are you into that carbonara. I need to taste it now. I've heard more about carbonara today than I have all life" Hyunjin joked, and Seungmin was glad the conversation didn't become awkward.
"it is literally the best thing ever, my grandma could probably get Italian citizenship with it. It's so funny her best recipe isn't even Korean.". He removed two lunch boxes from his bag, an old Superman lunch box and a newer and girlier Pinkie pie lunchbox. "Pinkie pie is for you by the way, it has extra pasta."
"Your grandma is the best bro, I'm so glad you were born.". Seungmin took his fork (a plastic piece the same shade of pink as the box), rolled up some pasta and motioned at Hyunjin to give his lunchbox lid. He placed the serving of pasta with a flourish and told Hyunjin with an exaggerated accent, "Monsieur, your pasta."
Hyunjin giggled, and accepted the lid. "Monsieur is French you dumbass.", Jeongin hissed at him.
"And your grandma is Korean. Fuck nationalities.". And with that poignant line Seungmin finally turned his attention fully to the esteemed lunchbox.
"Oh my god you were right, this tastes so good. ". Hyunjin sounded surprised, his eyes wide open.
"Let it sink Hyunjin, let it sink. I'm not giving you more pasta though. The rest is for me.".
"Nice person you are, you can take some of mine if you want more Hyunjin.", Jeongin offered, and okay this was not fair. "You can literally ask your grandma to make this for you anytime okay, this is a limited resource for my Korean cuisine restricted household." Seungmin countered, he refused to let others make him look bad.
"And you live a meter away. You literally come over everyday. Do not pretend this is some sort of scarcity of resource situation.", Jeongin asserted. Seungmin pouted away at his lunchbox, and with the grace of a sad toddler placed another portion of pasta in Hyunjin's lunchbox.
Hyunjin opened his mouth as if to say something, but whatever it was, it got stuck in his throat behind a wall of laughter. He started giggling, and when Seungmin made eye contact with him it only got worse. Seungmin started giggling as well and within seconds the group of boys resembled a trio of spotted hyenas in an African savannah.
By the time recess was over, any ice between the boys had fully broken. Seungmin dutifully passed off his now empty lunchbox to Jeongin, he turned towards Hyunjin and asked, "What period do you have now?"
"Uh I think I have Art, what about you?"
"I have English. Ugh. Its normally a nice period but with a stomach filled with pasta all I can do is sleep.". Seungmin sighed.
"Oh, good luck with that then. I think we have to go the same way though, you wanna go together?". Hyunjin suddenly felt a little shy, clear by the fact he was skirting eye contact. Seungmin smiled, "Yeah let's go together. Tell more about that dysfunctional stereo."
"Wait, don't make me a third-wheel already, bell hasn’t even rung yet weirdos. Give me your number Hyunjin, I need to send you Seungmin's ugly baby pics.". Jeongin put his phone in Hyunjin's hands, practically demanding Hyunjin for his number. "I don't even care at this point. I refuse to fall into your emotional abuse. Baby me was beautiful.", Seungmin replied, voice too light to be hurt.
"Aww, I mean you look cute now, why wouldn't you look cute then.". Hyunjin said it casually, as if the statement was obvious. Suddenly Seungmin flushed up again.
"Are you blushing? Ooooh, so all it takes is for Hyunjin to compliment you once huh? Bet it wouldn't work if I tried.". Jeongin teased, waggling his eyebrows obnoxiously.
"Yeah, okay, bye. We're leaving before Jeongin fills your head with dumb ideas.". He grabbed Hyunjin's hand and dragged him away from a Jeongin cackling at them both, Seungmin mostly.
After a safe distance Seungmin dropped his hand, suddenly aware of how sweaty it was. The school bell rang in the distance, and the crowd suddenly surged in the hallway, pushing Seungmin into Hyunjin.
Hyunjin held Seungmin's hand again, and they walked together tracing the edge of the pathway. Once they reached the Art room, Hyunjin dropped his hand again, but his eyes had a look Seungmin would describe as nervous. "Wait, take my number too. I want to text you as well.". Hyunjin wasn't making eye contact with him again, and Seungmin was grateful. His face probably looked ugly. "I actually broke my phone. It’s at the repair shop. Maybe you could write it down somewhere?"
Hyunjin suddenly lit up, as if he just realized something. "Wait I have an idea." He shuffled through his bag and pulled out a black pen. He moved behind Seungmin and scraped his pen along the paper collar Seungmin had long forgotten about.
"There you go, now hopefully your collar won’t fall apart by the time you reach home.". And with that he entered the Art room, waving one hand at Seungmin.
The collar did in fact, fall apart. It fell apart precisely in the middle of math, drifting down from Seungmin's neck. But if Seungmin picked it up, and carefully placed it in the smallest zip of his bag, it was nobody's business but his.
???
hey this Hyunjin
jeongin gave me ur number
baby u is cute