Chapter Text
The first time it happens, it’s entirely impromptu.
Five more minutes.
Hyuntak just needed to wait for five more minutes, and then he would be able to get some well deserved rest. Just five more minutes and he would be drifting off, giving himself a nice 30-minute break from the torturous chemistry questions in front of him.
“You know staring at the clock doesn’t count as studying, right?” Sieun spoke abruptly from beside him, causing Hyuntak to jolt up and snap out of his sleepy daze.
He groaned, and begrudgingly looked back down at his textbook. He was far too drained to comprehend anything on the page anyways, Hyuntak thought that he might have been better off just staring at the clock.
It was currently exam season at Eunjang High School, and his friends had barricaded themselves in the library without a moment to breathe for weeks on end. Juntae was very anxious about the situation with the Union being detrimental to their grades, and decided that mandatory group study sessions would help them make up for the valuable time they had lost back then.
“We need to put in twice as much effort to break even!” Juntae had said, trying to encourage them, “if we fail these exams, we’ve basically let them win.”
Hyuntak had agreed initially because he thought that the peer pressure might motivate him into actually studying, and Humin was ecstatic at the idea, stating that it would simply ‘be like hanging out all the time’. Unfortunately, it was nothing of the sort, the library staff were extremely strict when it came to noise, the wifi was obnoxiously slow and the atmosphere was so dull, Hyuntak swore he could hear the static movement of air particles floating around them. Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, the group still managed to stay in the library every single day for hours on end, sometimes until 2 or 3 in the morning. However, hours of studying with no breaks meant that they often lost concentration and ended up dozing off, an issue that they’d luckily found a solution to within the first few days.
And the solution was the mid-afternoon power nap.
The four boys would take it in turns to leave for half an hour during the afternoon to nap in the club room, and then come back so the next person could go. It was simple, it was effective and it seemed to increase their productivity greatly. Truly, it was pure genius.
Sieun always took his nap first. Hyuntak knew he had issues getting to fall asleep anyway, he assumed that Sieun was getting it out of the way so that he could study for 10 hours straight without Juntae bothering him out of concern. Juntae and Hyuntak usually took turns going second or third.
Humin lost his nap privileges when he went missing for well over two hours, only for Hyuntak to find him sitting on the club room floor playing a video game. Based on the amount of progress he had managed to make in the game, Hyuntak could assume that he had not slept a wink. From that point on, Humin was to remain in the library under the watchful eye of Sieun until it was time to go home.
“You need the extra studying time more than anyone anyway, you don’t even have time for a nap,” Hyuntak remembered Sieun stating. Humin had pestered him about what he meant, but he never received a real answer.
Five minutes had passed, but Hyuntak could see no signs of Juntae returning from the club room. In his dazed state, he resolved to wait for five more minutes, assuming that Juntae had either snoozed his alarm or was taking the long route back to the library.
Ten minutes passed. Nothing.
At the fifteen minute mark, Hyuntak decided to check if something was wrong. His eyes were refusing to remain open, and he knew if he did not take his nap now, he’d likely be out cold at his desk until midnight. He gave Sieun a nod, which his friend immediately understood, and then got up to start making his way to the club room.
As he walked, he couldn’t help but feel a little worried. What if something had happened? Juntae fell asleep pretty easily but he always woke up as soon as his alarm rang, and he’d never been late back before. Hyuntak wondered what the cause of his tardiness could be.
His question was answered almost immediately when he opened the club room door, because there, lying on the couch, with his glasses still on, was Juntae. The alarm was blaring and Juntae still seemed to be completely asleep. The reason for Juntae’s delayed return was simply pure exhaustion.
Hyuntak chuckled to himself softly.
He walked over to the couch, sat down on the floor beside it and gently removed Juntae’s glasses from his face. They were already crooked and definitely going to leave a mark when Juntae woke up, but at least it was something. Once he had the glasses in his hand, he sat for a little while longer, his eyes lingering on Juntae’s sleeping face.
Juntae’s cheeks had a soft red hue clouding them, his eyebrows were furrowed ever so gently, and his mouth was slightly open. His breaths were gentle, and his hair, which usually covered his entire forehead, was now pushed to one side. Hyuntak thought about not waking him up at all, maybe 30 minutes of this, just admiring Juntae in this peaceful state, would be enough to get him through a few more hours of chemistry.
His mind impulsively urged him to reach a hand out to stroke Juntae’s cheek.
He’s so cute like this, he caught himself thinking. Usually, he would have wondered if that was a normal thing to think about a close friend, but at the time, he found he was too tired to care.
As soon as his hand made contact with Juntae’s skin, Juntae’s eyes fluttered open, and he began to stir awake. Hyuntak felt a wave of guilt crash over him for accidentally waking his friend up over a single impulsive thought. It took a few more moments for Juntae to process his surroundings, giving Hyuntak just enough time to recover from the embarrassingly soft state that Juntae would have otherwise found him in.
“Tak-ah?” Juntae’s voice was still groggy with sleep, he spoke so softly that Hyuntak had to lean in just to make sure he was not hearing things.
Hyuntak tried to ignore the weird fuzzy feeling in his stomach when Juntae called his name with that tone.
Still sluggish, Juntae rubbed his eyes and reached over to look at the time. As soon as it registered, Hyuntak saw the look of panic begin to plague his face.
“Oh no, I was supposed to wake up 25 minutes ago!” He gasped, before covering his face with his hands. He attempted to get up, but Hyuntak could tell his body had given in to his fatigue because he remained lying.
“It’s okay, Jun, you’re probably exhausted,” Hyuntak assured, gently rubbing his arm to encourage him to go back to sleep, “you can take a little longer today.”
“But…” Juntae yawned, “you need to nap too…”
Hyuntak shrugged, there was no way he was going to let Juntae go back to the library in this state. He would only fall asleep again, this time on the hard wooden table and by no means would that be comfortable. If he was going to fall asleep anyway, Hyuntak preferred that he slept here, in the club room, with a pillow at the very least.
“Don’t worry about that, I’ll be back in half an hour,” Hyuntak gave him an understanding grin and got up to leave the club room, but a hand grabbed his wrist before he could take another step.
Hyuntak turned around to find Juntae’s expansive brown eyes looking right at him.
“Just give me one minute, I swear I’ll be up and ready!”
“Jun-”
“How are you going to study like this? You can’t even keep your eyes open!”
Hyuntak’s eyelids continued to betray him, he could feel them getting heavier and heavier even as he shook his head.
The argument turned into a never-ending back and forth, with no clear direction and constant interruptions because both parties were too tired to get worked up.
Hyuntak finally huffed, and then turned to speak, pausing as though he were unsure about whether or not he should say what he was about to.
“Hmm?” Juntae raised an eyebrow, clearly hoping to hear that Hyuntak was surrendering.
“There’s space on the couch for two people, right? Why don’t we just both sleep?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Hyuntak wanted to smash his head into the nearest wall and never move again. What kind of creep asks their friend if they can nap together? Not to mention that the couch definitely was not big enough for both of them, not unless they were really, really close.
Hyuntak couldn’t risk it, there was no way Juntae would not notice his racing heart beat if they were to lie next to each other, and no way he’d be able to stop himself from going red every time their skin accidentally touched. Maybe he’d be so high on his own insomnia-induced delirium that he might even accidentally run his fingers through Juntae’s hair, or kiss him silly, or tell him that maybe he-
He shakes his head, trying to get out of his own thoughts. He had nothing to worry about! There was no way Juntae would agree to his stupid suggestion, anyway.
“Okay.”
Hyuntak blinked. He blinked again, and then a third time just to be sure.
“Sorry, what did you just say?”
“I said okay,” Juntae's eyes seemed to be moving rapidly, avoiding meeting Hyuntak’s by any means.
Hyuntak was sure he was hearing things this time.
“It was just a suggestion, Jun, I promise it’s fine if you don’t feel comfortable,” Hyuntak reassured, slightly worried that Juntae felt pressured into agreeing with him.
It seemed to fall on deaf ears, because Juntae was already budging over, trying to create enough space for an entire 1.82 meter tall teenage boy to fit onto the couch beside him. Hyuntak tried to lie down, but immediately rolled off and hit the floor with a thud. Juntae only giggled, sitting up so that he could try to figure out the best arrangement for them both.
“Okay, how about you lie down first,” Juntae instructed, slowly getting up from the couch. Hyuntak followed orders and moved over to where Juntae had previously been sleeping. When he was completely horizontal lying on his side, he watched as Juntae stood in deep contemplation, attempting to figure out how he would manoeuvre himself.
It took a couple seconds, but eventually Juntae lifted Hyuntak’s arm, gently laid down right beside him so that his face was essentially millimetres away from Hyuntak’s chest, and then shuffled closer, bit by bit. Once he was comfortable, he let go of Hyuntak’s arm, causing it to fall on his side.
It turns out that the best way to get two bodies onto this tiny couch was simply to intertwine them.
Hyuntak was grateful that Juntae couldn’t see the expression on his face at that moment, it was a bizarre mix of panic and thrill that he had never experienced before. He looked down at the roots on Juntae’s head, and noticed the way that Juntae’s body has curled into his. The wave of cuteness aggression that swarmed him was almost too overpowering, but he had to control himself.
His arms were stiff at his sides, and he was wary about every single movement he made. Hyuntak wondered what the protocol was when it came to sleeping on a couch with one of your closest friends, who you already may or may not be developing feelings for. Was his positioning okay? Were his completely straight limbs freaking Juntae out? Was he allowed to put an arm around him?
Juntae seemed to have telepathically heard his queries, because he shuffled even closer, resting his forehead against Hyuntak’s chest and then lazily slinging an arm around his torso, so that his fingers gently grazed Hyuntak’s back.
Hyuntak stilled for a moment.
But perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or his longing for Juntae’s touch, or something else entirely, because before he could even process his own movements, he found himself wrapping both arms around Juntae, closing even the smallest gap between them. He felt Juntae’s leg gently slide into the space between his.
This felt nice.
Really nice.
And before he could overthink about how insanely close they were, or how soft Juntae’s hair felt against his neck, or how peculiarly perfectly their bodies seemed to mould into each other, Hyuntak was already falling fast, fast asleep.